Staff Software Engineer - Global KYC and Onboarding
At a glance
Senior Engineering Leadership role at Wise. London · full-time · £111,000–£145,000 base.
techroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Design and run scalable backend services with Java, Spring Boot and cloud technologies
- Lead improvements to verification systems, with emphasis on automation, reliability and performance
- Turn product requirements into technical designs, and guide architecture for verification services
- Build tools for verification agents, review code and mentor other engineers
- Share engineering practices and technical knowledge across the team
What you bring
- At least ten years of Java experience, including recent work with the Spring framework
- You have built distributed, high-throughput services and can make sound system design choices
- You have led technical initiatives and mentored engineers
- You understand SQL and NoSQL databases, security practices and data protection
Who this fits
This staff-level individual contributor role suits a backend engineer ready to set technical direction, mentor colleagues and influence work across teams. The position is based onsite in London.
From the employer
Wise is a global technology company, building the best way to move and manage the world’s money. Min fees. Max ease. Full speed.
Whether people and businesses are sending money to another country, spending abroad, or making and receiving international payments, Wise is on a mission to make their life easier and save them money.
As part of our team, you will be helping us create an entirely new network for the world's money. For everyone, everywhere.
More about our mission.
We are the Global KYC and Onboarding squad in the Servicing department and we have a mission: to enable teams at Wise to expand and fine-tune the business in a "config change" manner all across the globe, while remaining compliant and safe for the customers. There are three teams in the squad: Business Onboarding Verification, Personal Onboarding Verification and Wise Platform Verification (our B2B platform).
The scale we operate at: In FY2025, 15.6 million people and businesses used Wise, we onboarded over 5.9 million new customers (~500k/month), and moved £145.2bn across borders (~£400m/day) across 160+ countries and 40+ currencies. Our verification systems aren't supporting tools — they're core production infrastructure that protects customers, enables growth, and must stay reliable under constant change in regulations, policies, and evolving threat patterns.
All of the teams are diverse, cross-functional groups passionate about solving complex problems with elegant solutions. We bring together backend and frontend engineers, mobile developers, designers, data analysts, and product managers who collaborate closely to deliver exceptional customer experiences. Our teams are responsible for the critical verification journeys that business and personal customers complete before using Wise's products. We own the entire verification lifecycle – from document collection flows and automated review systems to agent tooling and compliance monitoring. We operate with high ownership in a bottom-up, transparent culture, make data-driven decisions, and celebrate both technical excellence and customer impact. Right now we're focused on building KYC/FinCrime as a configuration-driven product, refactoring and building new scalable microservice systems, and increasing automation using ML/AI where it genuinely improves decisioning, review quality, and operational efficiency — with safe fallbacks and clear observability.
As IC4, you'll shape architecture across the squad's services, lead the technical direction on initiatives like the configuration-driven KYC platform, and raise the engineering bar through mentorship and cross-team influence. As a team that touches both regulatory requirements and customer experience, we have unique opportunities to innovate in a space traditionally resistant to change.
By joining one of our teams, you'll directly impact these customers by transforming a traditionally frustrating experience into one that's fast, intuitive, and fair. Your code will help individuals and small businesses access global banking faster, enable entrepreneurs to pay international employees on time, and allow people like you and your teammates support their families across borders without friction. We're not just building verification systems – we're removing barriers that stand between our customers and their financial freedom.
We need like-minded engineers in all the teams in the squad, so we'll use the interview process to discover where your unique skills shine brightest. Ultimately, we want to match you with the team that perfectly aligns with your experience and sets you up for success!
As a Staff Backend Engineer (IC4), you'll provide technical leadership within your team, designing and implementing scalable, resilient systems that power our verification platform. You'll tackle complex engineering challenges, mentor other engineers, and collaborate with product and design to create solutions that make verification faster, more accurate, and more customer-friendly.
What You'll Do:
Design, build and maintain high-performance, scalable backend services using Java, Spring Boot, and cloud technologies.
Lead technical initiatives that improve our verification systems, focusing on automation, reliability, and performance
Collaborate with product managers to translate business requirements into technical solutions
Mentor junior engineers, providing technical guidance and code reviews
Drive architectural decisions and technical strategy for verification systems
Build internal tools that help our verification agents work efficiently
Contribute to our engineering culture through knowledge sharing and best practices
What We're Looking For:
You have 10+ years of Java 8+ knowledge, recent experience with Spring framework
Experience in working with SQL and NoSQL database
Strong system design skills with experience building distributed, high-throughput services
Track record of leading technical initiatives and mentoring other engineers
Strong understanding of security best practices and data protection principles
Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail
Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
Experience with financial or KYC verification systems is a plus
Interested? Find out more:
Wise Engineering – https://medium.com/wise-engineering
What do we offer:
Starting salary: Base salary of £111000 - £145000 + RSU
For everyone, everywhere. We're people building money without borders — without judgement or prejudice, too. We believe teams are strongest when they are diverse, equitable and inclusive.
We're proud to have a truly international team, and we celebrate our differences.
Inclusive teams help us live our values and make sure every Wiser feels respected, empowered to contribute towards our mission and able to progress in their careers.
If you want to find out more about what it's like to work at Wise visit Wise.Jobs.
Keep up to date with life at Wise by following us on LinkedIn and Instagram.
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