Senior Software Engineer

GiveDirectly; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 1,624,000 - 2,782,000; Full time

Job summary

A nonprofit organization aiming to help the poorest is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to design and build reliable systems for delivering cash. This global remote role involves collaboration with cross-functional teams and requires strong programming skills, including extensive experience in back-end development. An attractive compensation package, including unlimited PTO and health benefits, is offered.

Benefits

Competitive salary including bonus

Unlimited PTO

Robust health benefits plan

Desk allowance

Flexible work location

Qualifications

• 4 years of industry experience creating production-caliber software and systems.
• Exceptional alignment with GiveDirectly values.
• Experience with backend architecture: databases, cloud services, APIs.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable reliable systems for core operations.
• Own end-to-end development of new features.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to understand real-world needs.

Skills

Backend architecture

Strongly-typed object-oriented programming

Scripting languages

Analytical skills

Problem solving

Tools

AWS

Java

C#

Python

Go

Job description

About GiveDirectly

About GiveDirectly

GiveDirectly (GD) aims to reshape international giving and millions of lives by providing cash grants directly to the world’s poorest. The Brookings Institution estimates that $70B of cash transfers would be required to eliminate the poverty gap; the aid sector currently spends $135B each year much of it on evidence-free interventions. GiveDirectly wants to change that establishing cash transfers as a benchmark for foreign aid as the index fund is a benchmark for the financial industry and in the process accelerating the end of extreme poverty.

GD has raised over $1B since launching in 2011 delivered cash to more than 1.5 million people in 15 different countries. We’ve also supported large-scale experimental research that indicates strong recipient impact of our programs. As a result GD has been celebrated as one of the most innovative nonprofit companies by Fast Company while the growing cash transfer movement (and GD’s leading role within it) have been featured in the New York Times Magazine, This American Life, Foreign Affairs and The Economist.

Our culture is candid analytical agile and non-hierarchical. Our global team of 150 and country operations teams of 650 together come from 21 different countries speaking 69 different languages. From software engineers to seasoned humanitarian workers, former management consultants to public servants, researchers to field operations it’s an incredible group of people.

Our values are central and deliberately opinionated. We genuinely center the people we serve in our decision making and strive to build an ambitious dynamic and high performing environment. We strongly encourage you to read through our values carefully if they reflect how you like to work and energize you this could be a great fit.

We work hard to create an environment in which all our team members can thrive, succeed and grow. We support flexibility, take care of each other, have fun and create professional growth opportunities.

Location : This role is fully remote but must be available to meet with East Africa timezone by at least 2 hours a couple of times a week. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment Visas in the U.S. or U.K. at this time.

About this role

Technology plays a central role in how GiveDirectly delivers cash—whether that’s identifying recipients in hard-to-reach places, sending payments quickly after disasters or powering the platforms our donors use to give.

We’re hiring a Senior Software Engineer to help build the systems behind this work. Our engineering team still operates like a startup within GiveDirectly—lean, fast-moving and high-autonomy. You’ll lean into product thinking, help shape the roadmap and collaborate closely across disciplines to solve real-world problems. The specific team you’ll join is still being finalized; it could be:

• Our Programs Engineering team (getting cash in the hands of people experiencing extreme poverty)
• Our Fundraising Engineering team (raising more money for recipients) or
• Our International Rapid Response team (getting cash to disaster-affected communities within 5 days of a crisis anywhere in the world)

No matter the team you’ll play a central role in scaling our impact: getting more money to more people more efficiently.

This is a hands-on role with real ownership. You’ll help shape architecture, ship production-ready code and work side-by-side with teammates across product, data and operations. We’re looking for someone excited to wear multiple hats, move quickly and define what great engineering looks like in a mission-driven org.

Level : Senior Software Engineer

Travel Requirement: Must be able to travel 1-2 times per year to one of our countries of operation for team retreats or field visits.

What you’ll do :

• Design and build scalable reliable systems that power our core operations—whether that’s donor platforms, systems that deliver payments directly to recipients, or crisis response tools reaching hundreds of thousands of people globally.
• Own end-to-end development of new features and services from architecture through deployment and monitoring.
• Improve our developer workflows by strengthening CI/CD pipelines, reducing manual steps and increasing test coverage.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (product, ops, data) to understand real-world needs and ship tools that directly support program delivery in the field.
• Debug and resolve production issues across our stack with a focus on root cause analysis and long-term fixes.
• Advocate for sustainable engineering practices including testing, documentation and monitoring.
• Help shape our tech roadmap with an eye toward scale, maintainability and recipient experience.

What you’ll bring :

• Exceptional alignment with GiveDirectly values and active demonstration of our core competencies: emotional intelligence, problem solving, project management, follow-through and fostering inclusivity. We welcome and strongly encourage applications from candidates who have personal or professional experience in the low-income and/or historically marginalized communities that we serve.
• Language Requirement: English
• 4 years of industry experience creating production-caliber software and systems
• Experience with backend architecture: databases, cloud services, APIs
• Experience building infrastructure to deploy software
• Experience with strongly-typed object-oriented programming such as Java, C#, Go, etc., and scripting languages such as Python, Ruby, etc.
• High degree of ownership and autonomy - you proactively advocate for ways to improve systems and constantly leave our codebase in a better state than you found it
• Strong analytical skills and communication - able to break down complex problems, describe technical trade-offs and collaborate with cross-functional partners (e.g. technical program managers, product managers)
• Bonus: Experience using Python and AWS in a production environment
• Bonus: experience with payments/financial software and/or experience with microservice/serverless architecture

Compensation

At GiveDirectly we strive to pay our employees generously and equitably. We use an accredited third party salary aggregator to ensure that staff’s total compensation package (base compensation, bonus) falls within the 75th percentile of similar roles at similar organizations. We also have a no negotiation policy to ensure we are paying staff equitably across roles. Read more about our compensation philosophy here.

• The United States annual base salary for this role is $157,500
• The Kenya annual base salary for this role is $92,500 USD
• The UK annual base salary for this role is GBP 108,150

This role is fully remote so if you are not based in the US, UK or Kenya we will share an estimated salary benchmark for the country you are based in during the hiring process.

Why work at GiveDirectly

At GiveDirectly we work to ensure that you have everything you need to excel in your role and on your team including :

• A positive and supportive team with opportunities for advancement
• A demonstrated commitment to helping all staff develop and grow
• A competitive salary including bonus
• A robust health benefits plan (exact details will vary by country)
• Unlimited PTO (that we encourage staff to take!)
• Desk allowance and flexible work location

About this specific hiring process

• Take-home coding assignment (60 mins)
• Round 1: 2 x interviews (2 x 60 mins)

Live Coding

• Project Deep Dive, Behavioral
• Round 2: Systems Design (60 mins)
• Round 3: Final Interview
• It’s possible that there will be adjustments to this interview process. Any changes will be communicated to you during the process.

Working at GiveDirectly

GiveDirectly is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to the person’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

Flagging for US applicants: We invite you to Know Your Rights as an applicant.

Commitment to Safeguarding

As a global organization serving some of the world’s most vulnerable communities, GiveDirectly takes the safeguarding of its recipients, staff and partners seriously. GiveDirectly is a member of the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme and will systematically check with previous employers about any sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment issues relating to potential new hires. We may also employ other robust pre-hire screens including in-depth reference checks, criminal background checks and sanctions screens.

GD is committed to observing all local, national and international laws that protect children, vulnerable adults and basic human rights of all. GD is committed to a policy of zero tolerance for sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment (SEAH) and expects anyone who works for GD to uphold the protection and safeguarding of our recipients as a priority.

These efforts help us continue to build and maintain trust with the communities we serve and prevent harm to our recipients.

Want to put your best foot forward on your GiveDirectly application? Take a look at our Candidate Application Prep Guide!

Required Experience :

Senior IC

Key Skills

Spring, .NET, C/C++, Go, React, OOP, C#, AWS, Data Structures, Software Development, Java, Distributed Systems

Employment Type : Full Time

Experience : years

Vacancy : 1