Senior Backend Engineer I

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

Job summary

A pioneering financial technology company seeks a Senior Backend Engineer to develop impactful event-driven microservices that enhance financial inclusion across Africa. This fully remote role invites candidates to join a mission-driven team, utilizing modern C# and .NET stacks on Azure. Ideal applicants will be comfortable in a collaborative, DevOps environment, eager for continuous learning, and skilled in microservices architecture. Join us to drive change and unlock financial services for underbanked communities.

Benefits

Personalized training budget

Home office setup budget

Family-friendly policies

Well-being support

Career growth opportunities

Qualifications

• Strong grasp of C# programming.
• .NET development experience.
• Familiarity with event-driven systems.
• Experience in microservices architecture.
• Expertise in testing and deployment.
• Collaboration skills in distributed teams.

Responsibilities

• Build sophisticated event-driven microservices with real-world impact.
• Participate in system architecture decisions and production monitoring.
• Work within a DevOps culture managing the entire software lifecycle.

Skills

C#

.NET development

Event-driven systems

Microservices architecture

DevOps mindset

Collaborative teamwork

Continuous learning

Job description

Senior Backend Engineer (I, II & III)

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

We’ve already helped over 7 million customers access more than $2 billion in credit.

It’s your chance to transform lives across an entire continent.

Opportunity

• Mission‑driven engineering : Every service you build expands financial inclusion for underbanked populations.
• Global recognition : M‑KOPA is named by TIME and the Financial Times as Africa’s fastest‑growing companies).
• Scale challenges : Build backend systems that serve millions across multiple African markets.
• Environmental impact : We are carbon‑negative, having displaced over 2.1 million tonnes of emissions.
• Fully distributed : Work remotely with diverse teams across the 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—combining cutting‑edge.

.NET development with purpose‑driven engineering that makes digital and financial inclusion possible across Africa.

Technical Environment

• Modern C# stack : Predominantly C# written against the latest .NET stack.
• Microservices & cloud : Microservices hosted on Azure using Kubernetes.
• Event‑driven architecture : Continuous iteration toward a completely decoupled, event‑driven architecture.
• Mixed environment : Both legacy services and greenfield microservices.

Onboarding Journey

When you join, you’ll participate in an Internal Engineering Bootcamp—an immersive onboarding experience with our staff engineering group.

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

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

Engineering Approach

• 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 that owns the entire software stack, including supporting infrastructure, throughout the entire lifecycle—from inception through production to decommissioning—all within a DevOps culture.

You value the constraints that continuous delivery places on engineering processes and treat testing and observability as first‑order concerns.

Required Experience

• 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 across the UK, Europe, and Africa.

Personalised training budget to support your development.

Home office setup budget

• Internal Engineering Bootcamp : immersive onboarding focused on event‑driven architecture.
• 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, driving 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, creating 35, livelihoods for agents.
• Green : 2.1 million tonnes of CO₂ avoided through clean‑energy products and e‑mobility, with over , 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, prioritise well‑being, and embrace flexibility.

Equal Opportunity

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 forced or child labour and respects the rights of its employees to agree to terms and conditions voluntarily.

M‑KOPA does not collect or charge any money as a pre‑employment or post‑employment requirement.

Application Process

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Shortlisting and interviews may occur at any stage.

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

Successful applicants undergo pre‑employment background checks, including criminal records, identity verification, academic qualifications, employment dates, and references.