Sr Software Engineer - Screening Engine

Job Description The Opportunity You'll be a key technical contributor on the Screening Engine team, working on some of the most consequential systems at Wise. That means you're not just executing - you're identifying problems before they're problems, driving technical direction within your team, and actively shaping the product roadmap alongside your peers. You'll work closely with compliance, risk, and operations teams to ensure our screening stays sharp, scalable, and defensible under regulatory scrutiny. What you’ll do Deliver & Own Take end-to-end ownership of projects within the Screening Engine - from design through deployment to post-release monitoring Proactively identify risks and blockers early, and drive them to resolution without waiting to be asked Write clean, testable, well-reviewed code and hold a high bar for the team around you Shape the Product Contribute meaningfully to the technical and product roadmap for Sanctions, PEP, and Adverse Media screening Use data and benchmarking to continuously improve matching algorithm effectiveness and precision Balance risk reduction, operational scalability, and growth when making trade-offs - keeping the customer experience front and centre Build Great Systems Design and evolve fault-tolerant, high-throughput, low-latency distributed systems built for regulatory scrutiny Improve observability, reliability, and maintainability of existing services - not just build new ones Make thoughtful decisions around database design, query optimisation, and schema evolution for both relational and non-relational stores Elevate the Team Actively participate in and lead code reviews, setting a high bar for quality and constructive feedback Grow the people around you - through mentoring, onboarding, and sharing knowledge proactively Collaborate across teams and functions - compliance, risk, operations - to solve cross-cutting problems Qualifications About You We're looking for someone who combines strong technical depth with a growing product instinct and the desire to drive meaningful outcomes - not just ship code. Essential Solid experience with Java and the Spring framework - you can design and build production-grade microservices confidently Experience with asynchronous messaging systems (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS or similar) in a high-throughput production environment Strong understanding of RESTful API design, versioning, and operational concerns Hands-on experience with both relational (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and non-relational databases; you think carefully about schema design and query performance Comfortable owning the full lifecycle of a service - design, testing, deployment, monitoring, and iteration Strong to Have Experience in compliance, financial crime, or risk-adjacent engineering domains Familiarity with string matching, fuzzy search, or entity resolution algorithms Experience designing for regulatory requirements - audit logging, explainability, data retention Understanding of distributed systems trade-offs: consistency, availability, latency Who You Are You have a genuine product mindset - you ask "why are we building this?" as often as "how?" You make data-driven decisions and aren't afraid to challenge assumptions with evidence You take ownership seriously - you follow through, manage risks proactively, and don't let things fall through the cracks You're a natural collaborator who brings people together across disciplines to solve hard problems You believe in feedback - you give it, receive it, and use it to grow What We Offer A mission that genuinely matters - you're protecting real people's money and financial access A complex, high-stakes technical domain with real room to grow A team that values craft, ownership, and product thinking equally Wise's standard benefits, flexibility, and a distributed-first culture Company Description 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 lives 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 and what we offer . Additional Information Why Join Us? - You’ll work in a friendly, fast-paced fintech startup where ownership and collaboration are valued. - You’ll tackle challenging technical problems and have the autonomy to propose and implement solutions. - You’ll be part of a team that cares about stability, scalability, and innovation, while embracing rapid iteration and continuous learning. - You’ll have the opportunity to make a real impact on our customers’ lives by improving how they interact with our product. If you’re excited about solving complex problems, driving technical excellence, and working in a team that values ownership and collab