Senior Backend Software Developer (Sports Technology)

Black Pen Recruitment; Cape Town; Hybrid; ZAR 800 000 - 1 000 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading sports technology company in Cape Town is looking for a Senior Backend Developer. This role involves creating a reliable athlete-and-ball tracking system using Golang, with a focus on cloud infrastructure and big data techniques. The ideal candidate has a strong background in software development with at least 3 years of experience, effective communication skills, and a root enthusiasm for sports innovation. This full-time position offers a hybrid work model and great perks like generous annual leave and training budget.

Benefits

Generous annual leave

Occupational sick pay

Enhanced parental leave

Budget for training

Team socials

Working from home allowance

Qualifications

• 3+ years experience in software development.
• Hands-on, can-do attitude is essential.
• Effective communication skills and team working abilities.

Responsibilities

• Deliver reliable, documented code.
• Work as part of the engineering team to deliver a working product.
• Help develop and maintain their cloud ecosystem.

Skills

Golang (or strong experience in other strongly typed language)

SQL (PostgreSQL desirable)

Linux both cloud and local

Cloud Infrastructure knowledge (AWS or GCP)

Experience with Go and Python coding languages

Testing (TDD/BDD etc.), CI/CD, Version control (GIT)

Effective communication skills and team working

Hands-on, can-do attitude

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science or similar

Tools

PostgreSQL

AWS

GCP

Job description

Overview

Our client is a fast-growing sports technology company transforming how professional sports are played and experienced. They bring together innovators from tech, science, and design to solve complex challenges at the intersection of elite sport and advanced technology.

With a global footprint and a track record of industry-firsts, they’re expanding across multiple team sports, from rugby and football to high-impact games in the US and Australia. If you're passionate about sport and innovation, this is your chance to be part of the future of the game.

Role Overview

They are looking for a Senior Backend Developer with a strong technical background, and a passion for real-world problem solving. You will be part of creating a reliable, low-latency athlete-and-ball tracking system. Their products are used in training sessions, live broadcast with television or AR and officiating, so enthusiasm for new greenfield technology is a must.

A key focal area of this role will be the technical delivery of enhancements and features to their backend, written in Golang. Focusing on APIs, databases and asynchronous messaging. Your code will run on both pitch side and cloud servers. You will be exposed to data science techniques and AI for detecting and classifying sporting events in real-time.

You will be supported by a highly talented team of engineers, data scientists and sports scientists.

Job Type

Full-time | Hybrid

Location

Cape Town

Requirements

• Bachelor0s degree in computer science, or similar relevant experience
• 3+ years0experience in software development
• Golang (or strong experience in other strongly typed language)
• SQL (PostgreSQL desirable)
• Linux both cloud and local
• Cloud Infrastructure knowledge (AWS or GCP)
• Experience with Go and Python coding languages
• Testing (TDD/BDD etc.), CI/CD, Version control (GIT)
• Hands-on, can-do attitude
• Effective communication skills and team working

Nice to Have

• Network protocols e.g. (HTTP, TCP/UDP, WebSocket)
• Messaging Protocols (MQTT/AMQP or other message brokers)
• Basic JavaScript/React or Python desirable
• Experience with C# and C++
• Algorithms and maths skills, to help productionise the work of their Data Scientists
• Startup Experience
• Experience deploying local applications

Responsibilities

As part of their engineering team:

• Deliver reliable, documented code
• Work as part of the engineering team to deliver a working product through developing well designed APIs and data streams
• Ensure suitability of features and interoperability with frontend and lower layer server modules / embedded systems
• Help develop and maintain their cloud ecosystem
• Sustain the quality of features through good testing habits and maintaining CI/CD pipelines
• On Call Rota

Reporting directly to

• Lead Backend Developer

Working closely with

• Backend and Frontend SW developers
• Product Team
• Data Science Team
• Embedded SW team

Perks

• Generous annual leave
• Occupational sick pay
• Enhanced parental leave
• Budget for training
• Team socials
• Working from home allowance