Experienced Software Engineer (Elixir)

Zappi; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 800,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading consumer insights platform in Cape Town is looking for an engineer to join its Dashboarding & Longitudinal Analytics team. You will develop systems that turn large datasets into actionable insights, using technologies like Elixir, Ruby, and Python. The ideal candidate has at least 3 years of experience, strong engineering fundamentals, and a curiosity for Elixir. Enjoy a culture that values autonomy and effective AI tool usage in driving projects forward.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience, able to own features end-to-end.
• Strong understanding of software engineering principles.
• Comfortable with developing in Elixir and using AI tools.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain systems that process large datasets.
• Work within a cross-functional team environment.
• Utilize cutting-edge AI tools to enhance data analysis.

Skills

Strong engineering fundamentals

Elixir curiosity

Effective use of AI tools

Ability to work with ambiguity

Experience in shipping features

Tools

Elixir

Ruby/Rails

Python

React

ClickHouse

PostgreSQL

Kubernetes

AWS

Job description

Zappi is a consumer insights platform (~$100M revenue) used by Fortune 500 brands like Diageo and PepsiCo to test ads, products, and brand ideas before spending millions on production. We're the original disruptor of market research, and AI is our next big lever.

You'd join the Dashboarding & Longitudinal Analytics team — building systems that turn large-scale datasets into actionable signals across customers' full data breadth, augmented by our growing proprietary data asset. Processing ~2M survey responses/month.

Stack: Elixir, Ruby/Rails, Python, React, ClickHouse, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes/AWS. Trunk-based development, merge-to-main auto-deploys.

What matters to us:

• Strong engineering fundamentals, Elixir curious
• Comfort with ambiguity – teams shape their own work
• Effective use of AI tools (Claude Code, Codex, etc.) – we provide Claude Max licenses
• Bias toward shipping small and often
• 3+ years, able to own features end-to-end

Cross-functional teams, real autonomy, direct access to PMs/designers/data scientists/customers. Not a feature factory.