Senior Backend Engineer, Markets (Kenya) at Tala (formerly InVenture)

The Senior Backend Engineer builds and extends Tala’s backend architecture to support new country launches, new features, and fast growing user base. As a technologist and a leader, the Senior Backend Engineer pushes the team towards building a highly available, scalable, reliable, fault tolerant, and performant microservices platform. The Senior Backend Engineer follows and improves upon Tala’s engineering processes and standards while advancing Tala’s mission and business objectives. This is a technical leadership role within Tala’s technical track. You will report to the Backend Engineering Manager and collaborate cross-functionally with all Tala teams across the globe.
Responsibilities

• Design and implement features as defined in the Product roadmap
• Review design documents, perform code reviews, and weigh in on implementation choices from other technical teams
• Collaborate and support with cross functional teams (Product, Data, Credit, and Business Development) to ship scalable software solutions
• Continually improve our codebase with clean and efficient code as well as solving problems using the most appropriate technology
• Contribute to complete migration of legacy codebase to microservices architecture
• Contribute to the testing infrastructure to increase code coverage for backend modules
• Advance monitoring and alerting capabilities of backend modules to allow proactive improvements to availability and response times
• Technically lead and mentor a team of Backend Engineers to build/extend complex modules

Requirements

• 5+ years of backend software engineering experience
• 5+ years coding in one or more of the following languages: Java, Scala, Kotlin
• Developed and launched large scale consumer applications with the backend on Cloud infrastructure (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure) using microservices architecture paradigm
• Expert knowledge in architecture & system design
• Ability to provide technical leadership & mentorship
• Expert knowledge in REST API design and development for mobile/web use
• Expert proficiency in Agile development process
• Excellent ability to prioritize and communicate in a fast-paced environment
• Strong relational database experience (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or MS SQL)
• Strong non-relational database experience (Cassandra, Redshift, DynamoDB, HDFS)
• BS degree in Computer Science or related fields is a plus
• Demonstrated ability to interview candidates and evaluate technical skills