Principal Engineer (Payments)

Sydney Permanent

A leading financial services provider is investing in the next generation of its real-time payments platform and is looking for a Principal Engineer to help define whats next.

This is an opportunity to work at the forefront of modern software engineering building highly scalable cloud-native payment systems that process mission-critical financial transactions. Youll have the autonomy to shape technical strategy influence architecture across multiple engineering teams and drive the adoption of emerging technologiesall while remaining hands-on and close to the code.

Were looking for an engineer who is passionate about solving complex technical challenges enjoys driving innovation and is excited by how AI is transforming the software development lifecycle.

• Design and build highly scalable Java services powering modern payment platforms.

• Drive architecture across distributed event-driven microservices handling high-volume low-latency transaction processing.

• Develop resilient payment orchestration capabilities supporting multiple payment rails and transaction flows.

• Shape technical roadmaps and influence engineering strategy across multiple teams.

• Lead complex engineering initiatives from concept through to production.

• Remain hands-on contributing code while mentoring engineers and raising engineering standards.

• Champion AI-assisted software development leveraging modern tooling to improve developer productivity and software quality.

• Evaluate emerging technologies and identify opportunities to improve platform capability scalability and customer outcomes.

• Ensure systems are secure resilient and designed to meet the demands of large-scale financial services.

Youll likely be operating as a Principal Engineer Staff Engineer Technical Architect or Senior Technical Lead with a passion for building large-scale distributed systems.

Youll bring:

• Expert Java and Spring Boot experience.

• Strong cloud engineering capability across AWS and/or GCP.

• Deep expertise in microservices distributed systems event-driven architecture and modern integration patterns.

• Experience building payment platforms payment orchestration services or other high-throughput financial systems.

• A strong understanding of payment ecosystems including card payments issuer/acquirer integrations Open Banking or real-time payment processing.

• Knowledge of secure software engineering practices for financial systems and mission-critical transaction processing.

• Proven experience driving architecture influencing technical strategy and mentoring engineering teams while remaining hands-on.

• Practical experience embedding AI into the SDLC using modern engineering tools such as Claude Code Roo Code Gemini CLI Cursor GitHub Copilot or similar.

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders alike.

This is more than a Principal Engineer roleits an opportunity to shape the future of engineering within one of Australias leading financial services organisations.

Youll work alongside high-calibre engineers solving complex distributed systems challenges influence the technical roadmap of a business-critical payments platform and help define how emerging technologies and AI are embedded into modern software development.

If youre looking for a role where you can combine architectural leadership hands-on engineering and genuine innovation wed love to hear from you.