Senior Software Engineer

• We need a senior engineer who leads technical initiatives, designs complex systems and drives architectural decisions – in a space that is still emerging. The team is building banking services for entrepreneurs, small businesses and side-hustlers who haven't had suitable products before. The engineering you do here has a direct line to real economic change for people who have been underserved for too long. 
•  If you thrive on ownership, ambiguity and direct business exposure – read on. 

What you'll do here

• Take ownership of selected back-end domains within our emerging markets platform 
• Lead the design of complex back-end systems and make architectural decisions that drive our technical standards 
• Build and maintain integrations that power entrepreneur accounts, merchant acquisition and payment services – including account lifecycles, transactions, payment rails and cards 
• Design and implement distributed, event-driven and domain-driven solutions 
• Mentor and provide leadership to the existing engineering team 
• Engage directly with stakeholders and senior business leaders to translate business objectives into technical solutions 
• Evaluate and introduce technologies that move the platform forward and improve development processes 
• Proactively identify questions, gaps and opportunities beyond your immediate tasks – the team needs people who look further than the ticket in front of them 

Our tech stack

• Java and Spring Boot – your primary back-end environment 
• Kafka – event-driven architecture and messaging 
• PostgreSQL – our primary data store 
• AWS – where we build and run at scale 
• Terraform – infrastructure as code and DevOps tooling 
• Odin ecosystem – internal tooling and platform integrations 
• AI-assisted development – we use AI tooling actively to amplify what engineers can do 

What you bring
Experience 

• 6+ years of proven back-end software development experience, delivering production-grade systems at scale 
• Deep expertise in Java and Spring Boot within event-driven or distributed systems 
• Hands-on experience with Kafka (Or Similar), PostgreSQL and AWS 
• Working knowledge of Terraform or DevOps practices is a strong advantage 
• Experience with domain-driven design and event-driven architectures is highly valued 
• Experience in payments, fintech or financial services environments preferred 
• The ability to engage confidently with senior business stakeholders – not just engineers 
• Proven ability to work independently and take ownership  

Education 

• Minimum: Grade 12 National Certificate 
• Preferred: A relevant tertiary qualification in information technology 

Knowledge 

• You can apply expert-level knowledge and develop others' understanding across: 
• Event-driven and domain-driven architectures 
• Advanced Java programming and Spring Boot ecosystem 
• Distributed systems design, including the saga pattern and resilience patterns such as circuit breakers and bulkheads 
• Database systems and query optimisation (SQL and NoSQL) 
• RESTful API design and integration 
• Message-based systems and Kafka event streaming 
• Cloud computing platforms and services (AWS) 
• Infrastructure as code using Terraform 
• Testing practices – unit, integration and contract testing 
• IT systems development processes (SDLC), agile delivery and version control