Catherine Lau
Senior Software Engineering Manager @ PayPal | Driving Risk Management Solutions | Scaled Global Products at PayPal
- Role
- Senior Software Engineering Manager at PayPal
- Location
- Santa Clara, CA, US
- LinkedIn followers
- 500 followers
About Catherine Lau
Senior Engineering Manager with 15+ years of experience building and scaling mission-critical payments and risk platforms at PayPal. I’ve helped ship and operate products across the full PayPal customer lifecycle, from transaction authorization and fraud controls to regulatory, compliance, credit, and customer operations—often behind the scenes, where correctness and reliability are non-negotiable.My background is rooted in risk decisioning and rules platforms, including rules engines, governance, and lifecycle management, deeply integrated with compliance, credit, and payments systems. Over the years, I’ve contributed to major PayPal initiatives such as offline payments and POS integrations, debit cards, rewards and payouts, high-yield savings, crypto, zero-balance compliance programs, and Strong Customer Authentication (PSD2/SCA) rollouts across Europe.As a people leader, I manage and mentor globally distributed engineering teams across North America and Asia, partnering closely with product, legal, compliance, and operations to translate complex business and regulatory requirements into scalable technical solutions. I’m known for driving cross-functional execution in highly regulated environments, improving platform stability, and enabling teams to deliver with confidence at global scale.I’m passionate about building durable platforms, growing strong engineering teams, and delivering secure, compliant financial experiences that millions of customers rely on every day.
Experience
Senior Software Engineering Manager
Apr 2020 — Present · San Jose, CA, US
I lead a cross-functional team of 10+ engineers across Asia and North America, overseeing rules operations, governance, and the full rules lifecycle. My leadership ensured smooth coordination between teams in different regions, driving the efficient development, deployment, and maintenance of risk management rules to support the 1T+ TPV that is processed by PayPal annually.
Education
California State University - East Bay
MS, Computer Science
2006
UC San Diego
Bachelor's degree, Computer Science
2004
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