Senior Backend Engineer I

M-Kopa; Pretoria; On-site; ZAR 300 000 - 400 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading FinTech firm in Pretoria is looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to build event-driven microservices aimed at empowering financial inclusion across Africa. You will work in a fully remote role as part of a diverse team that values collaboration and continuous learning. The ideal candidate has strong expertise in C# .NET development and microservices architecture, contributing to technology solutions that impact millions of lives. Join us in creating a positive change and advancing financial access for underbanked populations.

Benefits

Personalized training budget

Home office setup budget

Internal Engineering Bootcamp

Professional development programs

Family-friendly policies

Flexible working arrangements

Well-being support

Qualifications

• Experience working as part of a team that owns the entire software stack.
• Comfort with the entire software lifecycle from inception to decommissioning.
• Value continuous delivery and testing in development.

Responsibilities

• Build sophisticated event-driven microservices.
• Own solutions end-to-end from architecture to production monitoring.
• Collaborate with senior team members to enhance development practices.

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

Overview

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 transforming lives across an entire continent.

Link to Impact report: M-KOPA Impact Report 2025: 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 100 as one of the world’s most influential and by the Financial Times as Africa’s fastest-growing for 4 consecutive years (2022-2025).

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 stack
• 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 onboarding 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.

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 +3 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: immersive onboarding with our staff engineering group
• Professional development programs and coaching partnerships
• Family-friendly policies and flexible working arrangements
• Well-being support and career growth opportunities

Our Mission & Impact

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 Our technology has created measurable change:

• Connected: 2.5 million first-time mobile internet users connected
• Prosperous: 70% of customers use M-KOPA products for income generation, with 35,000 livelihoods created for agents
• Green: 2.1 million tonnes of CO₂ avoided through clean energy products and e-mobility, with over 127,000 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. Explore more at m-kopa.com.

Important notices: 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 does not collect any money as a pre-employment or post-employment requirement. 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.