Software Engineering Team Lead

United States Digital Space LLC; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Professional development programmes

Coaching partnerships

Flexible working arrangements

Well-being support

Job summary

M-KOPA is seeking an experienced Software Engineering Team Lead to drive backend development for our Asset Sales platform. You will lead a team of engineers through greenfield and legacy projects, owning design, production, and decommissioning within a true DevOps culture.

You will define architectural direction, partner with a Product Manager on roadmaps, mentor engineers, and deliver high-quality software that scales across multiple markets in Africa, Europe, and the UK.

Qualifications

• Strong hands-on background in C#/.NET backend development.
• Experience with Azure, AWS, or GCP and cloud-neutral skills.
• Solid understanding of event-driven architecture and microservices.
• Experience leading or mentoring engineers in a team.
• Ability to set technical direction and collaborate with Product.

Responsibilities

• Lead a backend engineering team through greenfield and legacy projects.
• Own the full software lifecycle from design to production and decommissioning.
• Set architectural direction and partner with Product on roadmaps.

Skills

C#/.NET backend

Azure/AWS/GCP experience

Event-driven architecture

Microservice development

Engineering leadership / mentoring

Architectural guidance

Product collaboration

Tools

Azure Service Bus

Kafka

RabbitMQ

Kubernetes

Docker

Prometheus

Grafana

Job description

Join our growing FinTech Engineering team! We're recruiting another Software Engineering Team Lead to join Asset Sales team.

The Impact Your architecture will directly shape how millions of people access credit for the first time. We've already served 10 million customers and unlocked more than $2 billion in credit since we began. Every system you design, every engineer you develop, and every decision you make contributes to a platform that's quite literally transforming financial inclusion across an entire continent

The Opportunity

Mission-driven engineering: Your daily work enables affordable smartphones, digital loans, and financial services for Africa's Every Day Earners — people for whom traditional finance simply doesn't work.

Global recognition: Join a FinTech company named by TIME 100 as one of the world's most influential and by the Financial Times as Africa's fastest-growing company for five consecutive years (2022–2026).

Scale that matters: You'll be architecting systems that process over 2 million payments daily across five markets — and building for the next 10 million customers.

Environmental impact: We're carbon-negative, having avoided 2.155 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions across our product portfolio.

What You'll Do

At M-KOPA, you'll lead a team of backend engineers through both greenfield and legacy projects, owning the full software lifecycle from design ideation through to production and eventual decommissioning. Our engineering teams work under a true DevOps culture — with infrastructure as code, observability, automated testing, and continuous delivery treated as first-order concerns, not afterthoughts.

You’ll set architectural direction, partner closely with your Product Manager counterpart on roadmap planning and prioritisation, and serve as a servant leader who grows the people around you while shipping high‑quality, impactful software.

Technical Environment

• Languages & frameworks: C#/.NET

• Cloud: We work in Azure, and welcome experience across AWS or GCP

• Architecture: Event-driven systems and microservice development - we use Azure Service Bus, and welcome experience with similar messaging technologies such as Kafka or RabbitMQ

• Infrastructure: Kubernetes, Docker

• Observability: Prometheus, Grafana

• Engineering culture: DevOps, infrastructure as code, automated testing across all environments including production, continuous delivery

Our Engineering Approach

• Full ownership: Teams own their solutions end‑to‑end - from inception through production support to decommissioning.

• Servant leadership: We lead by coaching and enabling, not directing.

• Quality by default: Observability, monitoring, and automated testing are built in from day one.

• Continuous improvement: We foster a culture of innovation within a supportive, dynamic team environment.

• Product partnership: Engineering and Product work as genuine counterparts — planning together, prioritising together, delivering together.

What You Need

We're looking for an experienced, low-ego engineering leader who brings both technical depth and a genuine passion for growing people.

Required Experience:

• Strong hands‑on background in C#/.NET backend development

• Proven experience with Azure, AWS, or GCP - we work in Azure but welcome experience across major cloud providers

• Solid understanding of event-driven architecture and microservice development - we use Azure Service Bus, and welcome experience with similar messaging technologies such as Kafka or RabbitMQ

• Experience leading or mentoring engineers in a collaborative team environment

• Ability to set technical direction and provide architectural guidance

• Comfortable working with Product to shape roadmaps and drive delivery

The Team

You’ll lead a close‑knit, focused engineering team with real end‑to‑end ownership over a significant part of the M-KOPA platform. You’ll have a dedicated Product Manager as your counterpart and operate with genuine autonomy over technical direction.

Location & Benefits

• Work with diverse teams across the UK, Europe, and Africa

• Professional development programmes and coaching partnerships

• Family-friendly policies and flexible working arrangements

• Well‑being support and genuine career growth opportunities

Our Mission

We create financial inclusion for the traditionally excluded through a fair, flexible, customer‑centric financing model. We strive to drive greater inclusion of women, youth, and low‑income communities.

Our Impact

• Connected: 2.5 million first‑time smartphone users connected to the mobile internet

• Prosperous: 70% of customers use M-KOPA products for income generation, with 35,000 livelihoods created for agents

• Green: 2.155 million tonnes of CO₂ avoided through clean energy and circular economy products, with over 127,700 circular economy products provided

Why M-KOPA?

At M-KOPA, we empower our people to own their careers through diverse development programs, coaching partnerships, and on‑the‑job training. We support individual journeys with family‑friendly policies, prioritize well‑being, and embrace flexibility.

Join us in shaping the future of M-KOPA as we grow together. Explore more at m-kopa.com.

Recognized four times by the Financial Times as one Africa's fastest growing companies (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026), named on CNBC's World’s Top Fintech Companies 2025 & 2026 and by TIME100 Most influential companies in the world 2023 and 2024 , we've served over 10 million customers, unlocking $2 billion in cumulative credit for the everyday earners across Africa, in addition to over 10,000 e-bikes financed in Kenya.

Important Notice

M-KOPA is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer committed to assembling a diverse, broadly trained staff. Women, minorities, and people with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.

M-KOPAexplicitly prohibits the use of Forced or Child Labour and respects the rights of its employees to agree to terms and conditions of employment voluntarily, without coercion, and freely terminate their employment on appropriate notice. M-KOPA shall ensure that its Employees are of legal working age and shall comply with local laws for youth employment or student work, such as internships or apprenticeships.

M-KOPA does not collect/chargeany money as a pre‑employment or post‑employment requirement. This meansthat we never ask for ‘recruitment fees’, ‘processing fees’, ‘interview fees’, or any other kind of money in exchange for offer letters or interviews at any time during the hiring process.