Senior Full-Stack Engineer & Engineering Lead

Dariel; Remote; ZAR 1 000 000 - 1 500 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading fintech company based in South Africa is seeking a Senior Full-Stack Engineer to lead a team and drive technical excellence. This fully remote role involves managing project timelines, overseeing a team of developers, and architecting reliable systems. Candidates should have over 10 years of experience, strong skills in Node.js and Vue.js, and a background in fintech is preferred. Join a dynamic environment where you can make a meaningful impact and accelerate your career.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional experience as a Full-Stack Engineer.
• Ability to lead a development team effectively.
• Experience in fintech or high-scale transactional platforms is advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of 6 developers across various functions.
• Manage sprint goals, deliverables, and timelines.
• Provide mentorship and code reviews to the team.

Skills

Expert backend development in Node.js

Deep proficiency in Vue.js

Experience with cloud-hosted architectures

Payment systems

REST APIs design

CI / CD pipelines

Strong familiarity with Atlassian Suite

Job description

About the Company

South African fintech building the future of pre-payment and variable recurring payments (VRP).

Our platform powers Digital Lay-By, Save-Now-Buy-Later (Boost Rewards), Payment Plans, Smart Subscriptions, Stokvels, Pre-Orders, and more—enabling retailers to serve millions of previously underserved, cash-preferred consumers.

We partner with major enterprise retailers, e-commerce platforms, and banking institutions to deliver seamless installment-based purchasing across in-store Android terminals and e-commerce platforms (Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento).

As a VC-backed, rapidly scaling payments company, we are now expanding our engineering leadership to accelerate product delivery, strengthen our architecture, and improve our dev team's performance.

About the Role

We are looking for a Senior Full-Stack Engineer who is not only a world-class developer, but also a commanding technical leader—someone who can take charge of an engineering team of six, drive sprint execution, and set the standard for code quality and delivery excellence.

This role requires someone with a proven ability to take on hard, complex challenges and push through—often reflected in people who excel in endurance activities, long-term commitments, and completing difficult things.

You will serve as the engineering "general" : leading from the front, bringing discipline, structure, and clarity into our development organisation while still being hands‑on in the code.

This is a fully remote role, working with a distributed team serving enterprise clients and large‑scale fintech environments.

Responsibilities

Engineering Leadership

Lead a team of 6 developers across backend, frontend, and full‑stack functions.

Set and manage sprint goals, velocity expectations, deliverables, and timelines.

Run daily standups, sprint planning, retrospectives, and technical grooming sessions.

Establish engineering discipline, accountability, and strong execution standards.

Provide mentorship, code reviews, and performance oversight to elevate the entire team.

Collaborate with the CTO on architecture, scalability, and long‑term technical strategy.

Technical Ownership

Take end‑to‑end responsibility for major features, system improvements, and releases.

Architect and build reliable, scalable, secure systems in a fintech / payments environment.

Ensure high‑quality code through review processes, testing, and documentation.

Solve complex technical challenges with an ownership‑driven mindset.

Improve system performance, reliability, and observability across all components.

Work closely with Product, QA, Operations, and Support teams to ensure alignment.

Translate business requirements into well‑scoped technical work.

Act as the technical authority in merchant integrations, payments architecture, and VRP flows.

Communicate clearly and confidently with leadership and non‑technical stakeholders.

Qualifications

10+ years of professional experience as a Full‑Stack Engineer.

Required Skills

Expert backend development in Node.js (Express / Nest or similar frameworks).

Deep proficiency in Vue.js (Vue 2 & Vue 3).

Experience with cloud‑hosted architectures (AWS, GCP, or similar).

Payment systems, fintech, or high‑scale transactional platforms (advantageous).

REST APIs, microservices design, and secure system architecture.

CI / CD pipelines, automated testing, code quality enforcement.

Strong familiarity with Atlassian Suite (Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket).

Preferred Skills

Demonstrates strong leadership, discipline, and accountability.

Has the ability to lead people through difficult cycles, tough deadlines, and rapid change.

Has a history of push‑through grit (e.g., endurance sports, long‑distance running, cycling, Ironman, or any evidence of sustained commitment and perseverance).

Communicates with clarity, directness, and confidence.

Sets high standards and leads by example.

Thrives in a fast‑moving startup environment with real urgency.

Can make tough decisions and manage underperformance when required.

Equal Opportunity Statement

We are committed to diversity and inclusivity in the workplace.

Seniority level

Director

Employment type

Full‑time

Job function

Consulting, Information Technology, and Finance

Industries

Financial Services, Banking, and IT Services and IT Consulting