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This is Adyen: Rose Liu, Principal Software Engineer
Meet Rose Liu, a Principal Engineer building the future of fintech. Learn how the Adyen Formula empowers engineers to drive product impact and innovate.
Rose Liu is a Principal Software Engineer at Adyen, where she builds and scales our financial products, including Accounts, Issuing, Payouts, and Capital, for some of the world’s largest merchants.
With over a decade of experience as a software engineer in San Francisco Bay Area “big tech” and fintech companies, Rose is no stranger to solving complex problems. She shared a bit about her role, how engineering and Product collaborate, and what it’s like to be a part of the Tech organization at Adyen.
Q: Can you tell us about your role here at Adyen, and what first made you interested in joining the team?
I’m a Principal Software Engineer on the Financial Products team, where I code and design system architecture. I also participate in scoping products with our product counterparts and collaborate with our teams on where we’re going and where we’re providing value to customers.
In the fintech industry, Adyen has a unique advantage: we hold banking licenses. That was one of the most attractive factors for me in joining the team. It means that we’re not just providing a modern payment processing service, but we also provide seamless end-to-end integration of embedded financial products within one platform.
That’s a very powerful proposition in terms of what we can offer customers. It also means there is a huge innovation space, offering unique functionality that differentiates Adyen while enabling our clients to spin out new products and ideas on top of a robust foundation.
Q: From an engineering point of view, or from a personal point of view, what interests you about working in fintech?
Fintech is very close to our daily lives. From a personal point of view, I'm able to explain to my daughter, who's five years old, about what mom's doing, and it's very easy to talk to friends about their experience with using fintech products.
From an engineering point of view, I think fintech as an industry has a lot of space for modern technical innovations and improvements. So I can find myself useful, able to drive impact, and feel accomplished when delivering value to users. There’s a lot of room for innovation and creativity in this space.
Q: What level of influence do engineers have over product direction and roadmap at Adyen?
Engineers have a lot of opportunities to talk with customers and understand their pain points. All features come from customer needs as the first step, so engineers are encouraged to have those conversations.
The path to product decisions are supported hand-in-hand between Product and Engineering, and all those discussions are based on the facts and data points. Engineers have exposure to or collaboration with all the other roles in the company like Implementation Managers, Product, Operations, Compliance, Legal, Account Management, and all the surrounding roles and functions.
Q: Can you share a bit more about how you and your team work with the Product team at Adyen?
Working with Product is one of the most exciting parts of working at Adyen. Engineering and Product collaborate very closely, and we really act as a united team.
When we have a product idea or customer request, we work with our Product counterparts to identify the exact problem we're solving and what the user experience will look like. We collaborate closely throughout the entire process and openly discuss our thoughts around topics like approach, delivery phases, customer integration, and how to provide value at every milestone.
Q: What stands out about working at Adyen that has been different from your past work experiences?
The Adyen Formula fosters an environment where I can deliver value fast. I can see my work take effect and see how it changes customers’ products and people’s lives. I feel like it creates a good environment for working with others, and this way of working also fosters trust in the company.
We deeply care about the customer’s needs, but we’re not catering to one or two specific customers. We cater to all customers’ needs, which is also a Formula point. From an engineering and product perspective, this pushes us to be strategic and think long-term.
In terms of how people work here, we are direct but not rude. When I “talk straight”, people don’t feel offended. Instead, they are curious about what you actually think and why you think that way. There is a natural curiosity, assumption of good intent, and focus on trust and honesty. People are open to new ideas and new strategies. Conversations are based on facts and driven by data. The Adyen Formula is really true in day-to-day work at Adyen.
Q: How would you describe the engineering culture here at Adyen?
I think something that really stands out at Adyen is that engineers are empowered to create our own path, and to realize our full potential. We can explore customer needs, think through how we provide features and products to customers and how this evolves to change the product roadmap and the customers’ lives as well. Engineers are empowered to really think about this from the beginning, and all the way through to delivering the product to customers.
We’re trusted to find creative paths, and people are open-minded and really open to discussing and contributing ideas. That’s especially helpful when we tackle problems that no one has successfully tackled before. I’m an ambitious engineer, and I’m motivated and supported to solve interesting yet difficult problems that have a significant impact on customers. We also have support from managers and leadership to deliver the best for our customers. That enablement is truly unique.
Q: How does your team balance moving fast while maintaining quality?
For us, it really depends on the phase of the product. When we’re starting out, we focus heavily on identifying a specific customer need or pain point and developing a solution to resolve it as quickly as possible. In this 'startup mode,' the goal is survival and speed; we want to get a functional fix into the customer's hands immediately to see if it actually hits the mark.
Once we’ve validated that solution, we move into a pilot phase where we test the scaling of that fix with a larger group of customers facing similar problems. This is where we iterate based on broader feedback and pivot if necessary. After the pilot proves the value and we’re ready for a full-scale launch (GA), that’s when we shift our focus toward long-term quality. We start asking, 'How do we reduce user friction at scale?' and 'How do our systems support these diverse use cases incrementally?' It’s definitely a journey, but shifting our focus based on the product phase allows us to stay both agile and reliable.
Q: Are there other elements of how we work here at Adyen that stand out to you, from a technical perspective?
The way we make technical decisions is really in a scalable, long-term way. Not just at the product layer, but also at the infrastructure layer.
For example, even though we deploy payments and financial products technical stack end-to-end in house, our operational load is actually manageable. It's because we think of our technical decisions in a long-term, maintainable way.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like fellow Software Engineers, who are interested in joining Adyen, to know?
Adyen’s mission is ambitious, but if an engineer is also ambitious and wants to be a part of that mission, Adyen is the perfect place for them.
We think from the customers’ point of view, and think through the sustainable plan to create high-quality products. We’re constantly making data-backed trade-offs, in how we launch fast and iterate.
If you have the ambition to do this work and you’re excited, and feel accomplished by doing impactful work, Adyen is a great environment that gives you all the support and enablement to do it.
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Ambitious? So are we. Build the future of fintech with Rose and explore open roles across our global team.
