Vice President, Payments Platform Engineering

Western Union•Austin, TX

12h•$250,000 - $300,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Are you ready to lead the next evolution of a global payments platform at a trusted financial services company? Are you passionate about designing scalable, secure, and innovative payment systems that power seamless money movement across the world? Are you interested in joining a globally diverse organization where your contributions are recognized and celebrated? Then it’s time to join Western Union as a Vice President, Payments Platform. Western Union powers your pursuit. In this critical leadership role, you will drive the strategy, architecture, and execution of our global payments platform. You will partner across Engineering, Product, Compliance, Risk, and Operations teams to deliver a high-volume, low-latency, secure, and compliant platform that powers our global money movement ecosystem. You will ensure the platform is modern, scalable, resilient, and capable of supporting a diverse range of payment methods and channels around the world.

Requirements

15+ years of experience in technology and financial services industries, with a strong focus on payments systems and platform architecture.
10+ years of experience in technical leadership roles, managing large, distributed, global engineering teams.
Proven success delivering high-volume, high-speed payment platforms at scale.
Extensive experience working with large-scale global payment solutions, supporting complex and diverse decision frameworks.
Strong executive presence with a history of building cross-functional partnerships across technical and business functions.
Demonstrated expertise in platform scalability, system integration, and payments modernization initiatives.
Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related field (Master’s degree preferred).
Expertise in cloud-based platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or hybrid environments).
Hands-on experience implementing and managing DevOps (CI/CD) and Agile practices.
Strong interpersonal communication skills, with a proven ability to foster collaboration and drive results in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.
High energy, result-driven approach with a strong sense of urgency and commitment to excellence.

Responsibilities

Define and execute the strategic vision and roadmap for the payments platform, aligning with Western Union’s growth, innovation, and modernization goals.
Lead and inspire a global team of engineers and architects responsible for building and evolving platform services.
Ensure the platform supports a wide array of payment methods, including card, bank transfers, Real-Time Payments (RTP), and others.
Partner closely with Product, Security, Compliance, Risk, and Business stakeholders to deliver capabilities that meet both regulatory requirements and customer expectations.
Champion resiliency, observability, scalability, and performance through well-defined SLAs and SLOs.
Drive reuse, extensibility, and modular design to serve multiple use cases across Western Union’s ecosystem.
Play a key role in vendor evaluation, selection, and integration strategies where needed.
Lead operational excellence efforts, including incident management, root cause analysis, and a culture of continuous improvement.
Attract, develop, and retain top engineering talent while fostering a culture of innovation, ownership, and accountability.