India is both a builder and a test bed for this software. Card networks such as Mastercard and Visa, and payment companies such as PayPal and Stripe, run large engineering centres here. At the same time, UPI, India's own real-time payment system, has made the phone the place where Indians now pay, and Indian companies such as Razorpay, PhonePe and Paytm grew up building for it.
For an engineer, payments work has a character of its own. Every transaction must be correct to the last paisa, systems must keep running at festival-sale volumes, and security and regulation, from card data rules to the Reserve Bank of India's guidelines, shape how the code is written.
Payments is one of the Industry Verticals of
The Market Segments follow a payment outwards, from the card networks under every tap to the apps, the transfers across borders, the company card and the money no central bank issues.
The card networks and processors that every card payment travels through belong here, like Mastercard, Visa, Worldpay, Worldline and ACI Worldwide.
An online checkout is built by the gateways in this Market Segment, like PayPal, Stripe, Adyen, Razorpay and Cashfree Payments.
Companies that sell the card terminal and the billing software on a shop's counter sit here, like SpotOn, Clover and Verifone.
For the money a nurse abroad sends home, or a freelancer in India is paid from overseas, the names are companies like Wise, Remitly, Western Union, Flywire and Payoneer.
The UPI apps, wallets and phone-first accounts that India now pays from are made by companies like PhonePe, Paytm, Navi, slice and Jupiter.
When a company rather than a person pays, through a corporate card, a fuel card or a supplier's invoice, the software comes from companies like WEX, Corpay, Emburse, Bottomline and Billtrust.
Crypto exchanges and the custodians that guard the keys, like CoinDCX, CoinSwitch, Coinbase and BitGo, deal in money that no central bank issues.
What payments companies hire software engineers for, and which roles they hire, is on