Director, Engineering - Merchant & Payments
Job description
Director, Engineering - Merchant & Payments at Zip Co Limited.
About the role
The Director, Engineering - Merchant & Payments will own the strategic direction and delivery of a critical payments platform that empowers merchants to discover, integrate, and accept payments with confidence. This role is responsible for shaping intelligent commerce experiences through close collaboration with product, design, and architecture partners. The hire will lead the evaluation and adoption of emerging technologies to identify opportunities that directly enhance both customer and merchant experiences. They will build, mentor, and inspire engineering leaders to foster a culture of innovation, accountability, and excellence within their domain. Enterprise scale experience will guide the engineering organization while ensuring commercial outcomes are balanced with long-term platform evolution. The role will champion cloud native architectures and distributed systems guided at enterprise scale, leveraging AI to improve customer experiences, merchant capabilities, and engineering productivity. Finally, the Director will ensure risk identification and management remains integral to how the business operates, embedding our values of Customer First, Own It, Stronger Together, and Change the Game into their DNA.
Key facts
What you'll do
Modern payment infrastructure and scalable platform engineering steer how merchants discover, integrate and accept payments.
Emerging technologies are evaluated to identify opportunities that enhance customer and merchant experiences.
Engineering leaders are built, mentored and inspired to foster innovation, accountability and excellence.
Enterprise scale experience guides engineering organisations while commercial outcomes balance long term platform evolution.
Technology strategy balances long term platform evolution with commercial outcomes.
Cloud native architectures and distributed systems are guided at enterprise scale.
AI improves customer experiences, merchant capabilities, or engineering productivity.
Engineering managers and senior technology leaders are led to build inclusive, high performing cultures.
Commercial acumen influences executive stakeholders across technology, product and the broader business.
Modern engineering technologies include AWS, Kubernetes and microservices architectures.
Innovation, continuous improvement and building engineering teams that thrive through change are embraced.
AI and new tools adapt, learn and grow within the organisation.
Risk identification and management is integral to how the business operates.
Our values in your DNA: Customer First, Own It, Stronger Together and Change the Game.
Requirements
A degree is required.
Extensive leadership experience builds and scales engineering organisations within fintech, payments, digital commerce or marketplace businesses.
Deep expertise spans payment orchestration, tokenisation, acquiring, fraud, trust, clearing and settlement.
Technology strategy balances long term platform evolution with commercial outcomes.
Cloud native architectures and distributed systems are guided at enterprise scale.
AI improves customer experiences, merchant capabilities or engineering productivity.
Engineering managers and senior technology leaders are led to build inclusive, high performing cultures.
Commercial acumen influences executive stakeholders across technology, product and the broader business.
Practical notes
Typical interview steps
Hiring for engineering roles usually starts with a recruiter screen, followed by one or two technical rounds. Candidates often solve a coding problem, discuss past projects, and answer system design questions. Some loops include a take-home task. Final rounds typically cover team fit and give candidates a chance to ask questions. Interviewers look for how you break down an unfamiliar problem, not just whether you reach the answer. Practicing a few problems aloud and reviewing your own past projects are the best preparation.
Good to know
Roles in this field rely on cloud native platforms, distributed systems and modern payment infrastructure. Building inclusive, high performing teams is central to success in this domain.
Questions to ask
Useful questions for the interview: what a typical week looks like, how work is assigned, what tools the team uses, and how feedback works. Asking how the role has changed recently and what the team wishes it had known when joining is also reasonable. Questions about the manager's priorities are especially valued.
Career growth
Engineering careers usually progress from individual contributor to senior, staff, and principal levels. Some engineers move into management and lead teams of five to twenty people. Others stay on the technical track. Growth follows demonstrated impact, not tenure alone. A typical engineering ladder has clear levels with defined expectations for scope, quality, and mentorship. Moving up usually requires owning outcomes end to end rather than completing assigned tickets.
About the company
Digital financial services span Australia, New Zealand, USA. Operations serve 6.0 million active customers. Annual transactions reach A$10.1 billion. Revenue totals A$4.0 billion. Cash gross profit hits A$1.0 billion. Fiscal year results reflect scale. Company focus remains financial services. Jobs seek talent for growth areas. Teams work on transaction systems and customer solutions. Opportunities exist across functions. Candidates join a large scale operator in multiple locations.