Senior Backend Engineer I

M-Kopa; Cape Town; Remote; ZAR 300 000 - 400 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading FinTech company is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to build sophisticated event-driven microservices aimed at enhancing financial inclusion across Africa. You'll work collaboratively in a remote environment and own your solutions end-to-end. The role promises immense career growth supported by an inclusive culture and diverse development programs. Join us in transforming lives with technology.

Benefits

Personalised training budget

Home office setup budget

Professional development programs

Family-friendly policies

Well-being support

Qualifications

• Comfortable working as part of a team which owns the entire software stack.
• Valuing constraints that continuous delivery places upon engineering processes.
• Embracing testing and observability as first-order concerns in development.

Responsibilities

• Build sophisticated event-driven microservices with real-world impact.
• Own solutions end-to-end from architecture decisions to production monitoring.
• Participate in an Internal Engineering Bootcamp for onboarding.

Skills

Strong grasp of C#

.NET development

Experience with Event-Driven Systems

Microservices architecture experience

Testing and deployment expertise

DevOps culture mindset

Proven ability to collaborate effectively in distributed teams

Continuous learning mindset and openness to feedback

Job description

Join our expanding engineering team We're continuing to hire multiple Senior Backend Engineers (I, II & III) as we scale our growing FinTech team at M-KOPA.

Build sophisticated event-driven microservices that unlock financial inclusion across Africa.

The Impact

Your code will directly power technology solutions for millions of people across Africa who've been excluded from traditional financial services.

We've already helped over 7 million customers access over $2 billion in credit.

It's your chance to be part of something that's literally transforming lives across an entire continent. Link to Impact report: M-KOPA Impact Report

Pathways to progress.

The Opportunity

Mission-driven engineering: Every service you build helps expand financial inclusion for under-banked populations.

Global recognition: Join a company named by TIME as one of the world's most influential and by the Financial Times as Africa's fastest-growing for 4 consecutive years.

Scale challenges: Build backend systems serving millions across multiple African markets.

Environmental impact: We're carbon-negative, having displaced over 2.1 million tonnes of emissions.

Fully distributed: Work remotely with diverse teams across UK, Europe, and Africa.

What You'll Do

At M-KOPA, you'll build sophisticated event-driven microservices with real-world impact. Our engineering teams own their solutions end-to-end – from architecture decisions to production monitoring.

Join us in combining cutting-edge .NET development with purpose-driven engineering that makes digital and financial inclusion possible across Africa.

Technical Environment

• Modern C# Stack: We use predominantly C# written against the latest .NET.
• Microservices & Cloud: We favour microservices hosted on Azure using Kubernetes.
• Event-Driven Architecture: We are constantly iterating towards a completely decoupled, event-driven architecture.
• Mixed Environment: We have both legacy services and greenfield microservices.

Your On-boarding Journey: When you join, you'll participate in our Internal Engineering Bootcamp - an immersive on-boarding experience with our staff engineering group.

You’ll deep-dive into our event-driven architecture, explore our engineering practices, and understand how we approach building systems at scale.

We invest in getting you up to speed properly from day one.

Our Engineering Approach

We're looking for low-ego, experienced engineers who collaborate exceptionally well and embrace continual learning.

As an engineer, you'll work as a collaborator, with more senior members coaching and contributing, placing emphasis on:

• High quality output
• Observability and monitoring
• Automated testing in all environments, including production
• Infrastructure as code and DevOps practices
• Knowledge sharing and collaborative problem-solving

What You Need

We expect you to be comfortable working as part of a team which owns the entire software stack, including supporting infrastructure, throughout the entire software lifecycle - from inception through production to decommissioning under a DevOps culture.

You’ll value the constraints that continuous delivery places upon engineering processes and embrace testing and observability as first-order concerns in development.

• Strong grasp of C#.
• NET development.
• Experience with Event-Driven Systems.
• Microservices architecture experience.
• Testing and deployment expertise.
• DevOps culture mindset.
• Proven ability to collaborate effectively in distributed teams.
• Continuous learning mindset and openness to feedback.

Location & Benefits

• Fully remote role within UTC -1 to UTC time zones.
• Work with diverse teams distributed across UK, Europe, and Africa.
• Personalised training budget to support your development.
• Home office setup budget.
• Internal Engineering Bootcamp: Join our staff engineering group for an immersive onboarding where you'll deep-dive into our event-driven architecture and engineering practices.
• Professional development programs and coaching partnerships.
• Family-friendly policies and flexible working arrangements.
• Well-being support and 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 mobile internet users connected.
• Prosperous: 70% of customers use M-KOPA products for income generation, with 35% livelihoods created for agents.
• Green: 2.1 million tonnes of CO₂ avoided through clean energy products and e-mobility, with over circular economy products provided.

Ready to build C# .NET solutions that create real-world financial inclusion?

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.

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-KOPA explicitly 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 / charge any money as a pre-employment or post-employment requirement.

This means that 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.

Applications for this position will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Shortlisting and interviews will take place at any stage during the recruitment process.

We reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a suitable candidate is selected before the advertised closing date.