Airwallex is one of the few companies where a senior product builder can work across the full problem of global money movement, with direct licenses in many markets, substantial owned infrastructure, and founder-level ownership, without having to trade any of those things for the others.
Key takeaways
- Airwallex holds licenses across dozens of markets and connects to local payment networks in 120+ countries. Product decisions affect live money movement the moment they ship.
- The most important product decisions in agentic finance haven’t been made yet. The builders who make them now will set defaults the industry uses for the next 20 years.
- Dan Kim was asked to build a working product using Airwallex’s APIs in his second week. Not write a memo. Build.
- The company grew up global, runs AI-native internally and in the product, and holds the bar consistently high at every level.
Dan Kim joined Airwallex as VP, Product Partnerships and Developer Ecosystem. It’s the first time Airwallex has created this role, a signal of how seriously the company is taking developer experience. He spent five years at Coinbase building its developer platform, digital assets, and agentic commerce businesses. Airbnb and Tesla before that. He knows what a high-bar product environment looks like, and he’s direct about what he found when he got here.
Why AI-Native Financial Infrastructure Matters Now
The payment system underneath global commerce hasn’t fundamentally changed in decades. Most of it traces back to the fax machine era. Dan puts it plainly: “A payment crosses borders the way a document used to cross a fax line. It’s slow, it goes point to point, and somebody ends up standing by the machine making sure it actually arrived.”
Some cross-border payments still move through correspondent banking networks, adding intermediaries and complexity.
Two things are now changing that: AI agents that can actually do work, and infrastructure that makes money programmable. Put them together and we now have an opportunity to rewrite the rules about how businesses make money and pay each other, very similar to how the internet forced us to rethink how we communicate and share information.
Dan believes that the most important product decisions in that shift have yet to be made. How does a business give an agent a budget without losing control? What does an account for an agent actually look like? How does FX pricing work once settlement happens in seconds? “Whoever solves this first writes the rules for the next twenty years.”
Airwallex already has the customers and infrastructure to make those decisions real rather than theoretical. The builders who work on them now won’t be writing strategy docs about what the future could look like. They’ll be shipping it.
What Founder-Level Ownership Looks Like
At many product companies, ownership is a word that appears in job descriptions and disappears in practice. Product managers spend their time defending the roadmap from sales, explaining why engineering commitments made in renewal calls can’t ship, and waiting for alignment that never quite arrives.
During Dan’s second week at Airwallex, his manager, Airwallex’s Chief Product Officer, asked him to build a working product using Airwallex’s APIs. Not to write a strategy document, but to build a product instead.
“What stood out in my early conversations here was how well both sides understood the business. Commercial leaders could explain product decisions, and product leaders knew their revenue numbers.”
That kind of environment doesn’t happen by accident. At Airwallex, it’s structural. “I don’t need to persuade people that product concerns deserve equal weight. I’m expected to understand the customer problem, the commercial impact, and the technical implementation before you can make the right decisions. I also have enough scope to work across all three.”
More of the stack, built in-house
That kind of ownership is only possible because of how Airwallex built its infrastructure from day one.
The fast way to launch a fintech is to build on top of sponsor banks, correspondent networks, and third-party payment rails. It works, and a lot of companies have done it. The tradeoff is that licensing, routing decisions, settlement, and the economics behind each transaction belong, at least in part, to someone else.
Airwallex took the harder path. Local licenses secured market by market, direct connections to local payment networks and clearing systems, and payments and FX infrastructure built and operated in-house. Today that covers 120+ countries. Partners still play a role where local regulation, settlement, or product design requires it. The difference is that more of the licensing, technology, and operational control sits inside Airwallex than at most companies in this space.
Dan puts it plainly: “We hold licenses, operate payment infrastructure, price FX, and build the products and APIs customers use.”
In practice, product decisions don’t disappear into an external provider. When a business in Singapore pays a supplier in Mexico through Airwallex, the teams responsible for the account, FX, payment network, and API are all inside the company. When something needs to change, they can change it faster.
That’s what makes the ownership real, not just the title.
The whole company runs AI-native
This isn’t a company that added an AI strategy in 2024. Airwallex has made significant investments in internal AI infrastructure and ships AI-first products. With Kai and AgentOS, customers can use natural language to query information and initiate selected financial workflows.
Airwallex is building new AI capabilities that go well beyond product features, as well. One example is addressing the structural challenge of using AI agents for global money movement.
AI agents can initiate transactions autonomously. That changes the payment problem entirely. As Dan puts it: “If software can discover what it needs, negotiate access, pay for an API call, buy data, or trigger work inside another product, the payment flow cannot depend on a human sitting in the middle of it.”
But removing the human from the payment flow doesn’t remove the work around the money. A company that receives a payment quickly may need to pay a supplier in pesos, reconcile revenue in its ERP or get money into an account the finance team actually uses. “Getting the money there is one problem. Making it usable once it arrives is a different one.”
Airwallex is building products across both sides of that problem. That’s what makes this moment specific, not just promising.
It grew up global
There’s a familiar version of “global company” that means a US business with offices in London and Singapore. The culture is still American, the default assumptions are still domestic, and going truly global means fighting internal gravity the whole way.
Airwallex isn’t that. Dan noticed it immediately: “I love being at a company that grew up as global instead of a domestic company trying to become one, not just the customer base, but also the employee base, the culture, and the world views. US-centric companies often lack that, and they have a hard time becoming global later.”
That shows up most clearly in how the company thinks about compliance. Airwallex holds its own licenses in many markets and works with banking partners where regulation or product structure requires it. It’s a slower way to build. It’s also the reason the company’s compliance posture is all its own.
As Dan puts it: “Nobody here is looking for shortcuts, because in global, compliant fintech there aren’t any worth taking.”
For builders who want to ship products that actually work in Mexico City, Manila, and Manchester, this matters structurally. It’s baked into how the company was built.
The talent bar is genuinely high
Dan didn’t expect Airwallex to have mediocre people. What surprised him was the consistency: “The hiring bar being really high is something I easily noticed, at all levels and teams.”
The other thing he picked up on was the philosophy behind it. A lot of companies hire for a slot and define the person by it. Airwallex thinks differently: “I love that Airwallex elevates their hiring framework to focus on what people can do, and not just on what the organization needs them to do.”
If you’re used to your title setting your ceiling, that’s a different dynamic here. People who can operate at the next level get handed bigger problems faster. The scope follows the ability.
In Dan’s own words
Dan has worked at companies that were each exceptional at something specific. Tesla did the hard industrial work most software companies avoid. Airbnb built something genuinely global in a way that forced the team to take local rules and trust seriously. What struck him about Airwallex is that he didn’t have to choose between any of it:
“I didn’t have to trade one for another. The company built and operates substantial financial infrastructure, including licenses, payment infrastructure, and the products and APIs customers use. It grew up global rather than expanding into global. Nobody’s looking for shortcuts around compliance. The talent bar is as high as anywhere I’ve worked, and the whole company runs AI-native, internally and in the product. Each of those traits on its own marks a great company. It’s really cool to see all of them in one place.”
Airwallex is hiring senior product builders across our San Francisco and Seattle teams. If this is the kind of work you want to do, see open roles or get in touch directly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes Airwallex different from other fintech companies for senior product builders?
Airwallex holds direct licenses in many markets, connects to local clearing systems in 120+ countries, and builds its own FX capabilities rather than reselling someone else's. It works with banking partners where local regulation or product structure requires it. The difference is that product decisions affect live money movement directly. That's what makes the work consequential rather than advisory.
What does day-to-day product ownership look like at Airwallex?
In his second week, Dan's manager asked him to build a working product using Airwallex's APIs, not write a strategy document. Product leaders are expected to understand the customer problem, the commercial impact, and the technical implementation, and they have scope across all three. Because Airwallex owns and operates much of its own infrastructure, most decisions don't disappear into an external provider.
Why is now the right time to join Airwallex?
The most important product decisions in agentic finance are still being made. Questions about how businesses give agents budget authority, what identity and permissions mean when software is spending on a company's behalf, and how FX works at software speed are all open. Airwallex has the infrastructure and live customers to make those decisions real. The builders who work on them now are setting category defaults.
Is the AI-native claim real or just marketing?
It's structural. Airwallex has made significant investments in internal AI infrastructure and ships AI-first products. Kai and AgentOS let customers run financial workflows in natural language today. That's not a pivot. It's what a decade of building owned payments, FX, and compliance infrastructure was always pointing toward.
What kind of product leader will thrive at Airwallex?
Senior builders who want to own problems that cut across product, economics, regulation, and technical implementation, and who are comfortable operating before the scope is formally handed to them. Career growth here becomes less about waiting for a specific role to open and more about proving you can operate at the next level. If you want a narrowly defined role with a well-established path, this probably isn't the right fit.
How competitive is the hiring bar for senior product roles?
High, consistently, at every level. The company's hiring approach focuses on what candidates can do rather than what the org needs them to do in a specific slot. Expect early conversations to test whether you actually understand the business. Commercial leaders can explain product decisions here, and product leaders know their revenue numbers.
