Engineering Manager - Unified API

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Engineering Manager to lead our Unified API group at StraitsX, overseeing two teams responsible for our core payment APIs, blockchain infrastructure, and agentic payment solutions.

In this role, you will lead engineers and an Engineering Manager, driving technical strategy, engineering delivery, and system reliability across both teams. You will play a key role in shaping our backend architecture and advancing our engineering practices as we embrace AI-native software development.

This is a technical leadership role that combines people management, architectural decision-making, and engineering excellence. While you won't be expected to contribute code daily, you will provide technical direction, establish engineering standards, and champion the adoption of AI-driven development practices to build scalable, secure, and reliable payment systems.

What You Will Do

Engineering Leadership & Team Development

• Lead and develop engineering teams responsible for core payment APIs, blockchain, and agentic payment solutions.
• Manage and mentor engineers and an Engineering Manager, fostering a culture of ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Oversee engineering delivery across multiple teams, balancing priorities, resources, timelines, and technical trade-offs.
• Drive talent development through coaching, performance management, career development, and hiring.
• Ensure the reliability and operational excellence of production systems through effective monitoring, incident management, and continuous improvement.

AI-Native Engineering & Technical Strategy

• Drive the adoption of AI coding agents throughout the software development lifecycle, including design, implementation, testing, debugging, and code reviews.
• Champion specification-driven development by translating requirements into clear acceptance criteria, automated tests, and verifiable outcomes.
• Establish robust AI verification and evaluation practices, including automated testing, evaluation frameworks, and human review processes.
• Ensure AI-assisted development follows appropriate security controls, testing standards, and review processes before production deployment.
• Continuously explore opportunities to improve engineering productivity, development workflows, and software quality through AI-driven technologies.

Architecture, Engineering Excellence & Collaboration

• Lead architectural discussions, technical design reviews, and key engineering decisions across both teams.
• Establish and maintain engineering standards to ensure backend systems are scalable, secure, reliable, and maintainable.
• Define team objectives and OKRs aligned with the broader product roadmap and business priorities.
• Collaborate closely with Product, Compliance, and other Engineering leaders to align technical solutions with business requirements.
• Drive improvements in engineering processes to accelerate delivery while maintaining high standards of quality, security, and reliability.

What Are We Looking For

• Proven experience managing software engineering teams in production backend environments, including leading or mentoring senior engineers.
• Strong technical background with approximately 7+ years of experience in backend software engineering, including system architecture and technical design.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems, databases, APIs, asynchronous processing, and system reliability.
• Hands-on experience using AI coding agents in software development, with a practical understanding of their capabilities, limitations, and potential risks.
• Familiarity with AI agent architectures and workflows, including agent harnesses, context management, tool calling, Model Context Protocol (MCP), and verification of AI-generated work.
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex engineering projects, manage competing priorities, and make sound technical and business trade-offs.
• Strong communication, stakeholder management, and leadership skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively across teams.
• Proficiency in written and spoken English.

Nice-to-Have Qualifications

• Experience managing Engineering Managers or leading multiple engineering teams.
• Experience developing or overseeing production AI-agent systems, agent harnesses, or MCP servers.
• Familiarity with AI evaluation frameworks, automated verification, adversarial testing, or classifiers for engineering workflows.
• Understanding of AI security risks, including prompt injection, tool misuse, and unauthorized data access.
• Experience optimizing AI workflows for performance, latency, cost, and efficiency.
• Background in fintech, payment processing, digital banking, or other regulated financial services.
• Familiarity with stablecoins, blockchain infrastructure, or emerging agentic payment protocols such as x402 and AP2.