Principal Product Design Architect

About Airwallex

Airwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by our unique combination of proprietary infrastructure and software, we empower over 200,000 businesses worldwide – including Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN and many more – with fully integrated solutions to manage everything from business accounts, payments, spend management and treasury, to embedded finance at a global scale.

Proudly founded in Melbourne, we have a team of over 2,000 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$8 billion and backed by world-leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, Robinhood Ventures, Sequoia, Salesforce Ventures, DST Global, and Lone Pine Capital, Airwallex is leading the charge in building the global payments and financial platform of the future. If you’re ready to do the most ambitious work of your career, join us.

Attributes We Value

We hire successful builders with founder-like energy who want real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring strong role-related expertise and sharp thinking, and you’re motivated by our mission and operating principles. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles, balancing speed and rigor.

You're humble and collaborative; turn zero‑to‑one ideas into real products, and you “get stuff done” end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, you’ll tackle complex, high‑visibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, let’s build what’s next.

Role Summary

We are seeking an experienced Principal Product Design Architect to lead the design of the Airwallex web and mobiles apps, which contain a suite of powerful financial products. This is the highest-level individual contributor design role at Airwallex. You will be responsible for defining and designing the overarching interaction patterns and structural principles that guide the development of a unified and intuitive user experience across all our products.

Primary Responsibilities

• UI Architecture: Develop and design a comprehensive interaction design framework across desktop web, mobile web, and native mobile to support our ambitious product strategy and create a unified user experience across our product suite.

• Design Shared Product Experiences: Work with PMs, customers, and engineers, to design core product experiences like user access management, settings, and other functionality shared by products across our suite, ensuring consistency and high quality. 

• Collaboration & Leadership: Work closely with independent teams of product managers, engineers, and designers to integrate your design principles and patterns into their product-specific designs.

• Design System Integration: Partner closely with the design system team to ensure alignment between high-level interaction patterns and lower-level component libraries. Facilitate the seamless incorporation of design system components into the broader application architecture.

• User-Centred Design: Advocate for user needs, leveraging user research and analytics from across the company to inform and refine interaction patterns and design decisions.

• Documentation & Communication: Create and maintain comprehensive documentation of design principles, guidelines, and best practices. Effectively raise the bar of our overall product design practice by evangelising these standards with the design team.
  

Qualifications

• Design Craft: 10+ years of experience in UX and interaction design with a strong portfolio showcasing your work in complex web applications and design system design.

• Leadership: Proven experience leading design initiatives and working cross-functionally with product managers, engineers, and designers in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

• Design Systems: Deep understanding of design systems and how they integrate with broader application architecture. 

• Strategic Thinking: Ability to conceptualise and execute a unified interaction design strategy that aligns with business goals and user needs.

• Technical Knowledge: Deep knowledge of technologies and tools used in modern web app development. Knowledge of front-end frameworks and development processes is beneficial.

• Communication Skills: Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to present complex design concepts clearly and persuasively.

• Project Management: Proven track record of project management and delivery in fast-paced environments.

• Adaptability: Thrive in startup environments with ambiguous project scopes.
  

Nice to Haves

• Experience in the financial industry.

• Degree in Design, HCI, or related field.
  

Working at Airwallex

• We work in in-office/remote hybrid.

• Airwallex is a high performance, high responsibility, high impact workplace. Come make your mark!

Applicant Safety Policy: Fraud and Third-Party Recruiters

To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com or our official LinkedIn page.

Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary.

Equal opportunity

Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We don’t regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.