Platform Engineer

Electrum; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 600,000 - 900,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible Work

Generous Leave

Fully-stocked kitchen

Daily catered lunch

Regular team activities

Job summary

A next-generation payment technology firm is seeking a Platforms Engineer to design and maintain scalable platforms for application development. In this role, you'll enhance developer productivity through automation and CI/CD. Ideal candidates will have a Bachelor's in Computer Science and extensive experience in Kubernetes and cloud environments. The company offers flexible work arrangements and values a collaborative culture, aiming for significant impact in the financial sector.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of relevant work experience in a software development team.
• 2+ years of experience deploying and managing Kubernetes clusters.
• Experience in using GitOps and CI-CD workflows.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable and secure platforms.
• Automate infrastructure and optimize CI/CD pipelines.
• Drive best practices in Platform Engineering.

Skills

Agile / Scrum methodologies

AWS/Cloud services

Java

Kubernetes

Backend Development

Database Management

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Engineering

Tools

Kubernetes

Terraform

GitHub Actions

Prometheus

Job description

Overview

Electrum Is a Next-generation Payment Software Technology Company. Since 2012, we've delivered trusted, enterprise-grade, cloud-native software to optimise financial transaction processing. Our deep expertise has established us as a respected partner in high-volume, low-value payment schemes, enabling clients to deliver services to millions of South Africans daily.
At Electrum, we are grounded in impact - designing solutions that matter, acting with urgency, and continuously learning as we scale. We believe in creating together - working side by side with our clients and teams to build meaningful, lasting solutions. We prioritise making it safe - encouraging open communication, smart risk‑taking, and trust so that creativity and alignment thrive. And we back empowered strong teams - hiring brilliant people, collaborating hard, and holding each other to high standards while leading with empathy and kindness.

What You’ll Get

• Be part of the entire journey — from the spark of an idea to the final product launch.
• Grow your skills through world‑class training and hands‑on learning every day.
• Receive mentorship and guidance from industry leaders who are invested in your success.
• Work in a dynamic, innovative workplace where collaboration and creativity thrive.
• Tackle real‑world customer challenges and see the impact of your work firsthand.
• Explore plenty of opportunities to grow your career and expand your expertise.
• Gain valuable experience in a leading FinTech environment, contributing to meaningful, high‑impact projects.

The Role

Are you passionate about building the foundational infrastructure that powers modern software development? Electrum is seeking a Platforms Engineer to design, build, and maintain scalable, secure, and resilient platforms that support the development, deployment, and operation of applications across the organisation. In this role, you'll enable engineering teams by automating infrastructure, optimising CI/CD pipelines, and ensuring platform reliability and performance. You'll play a key role in driving Platform Engineering best practices, improving developer productivity, and fostering operational excellence through infrastructure‑as‑code and modern tooling. If you thrive in complex environments and are motivated by the opportunity to create impact at scale, we'd love to connect with you.

Beneficial Experience

• Experience in Agile / Scrum methodologies
• An understanding of AWS/Cloud services and best practices, e.g. the AWS Well‑Architected Framework

Tooling / Stack

• Kubernetes & Containerisation: Using Kubernetes, Istio, ArgoCD, Helm & CI/CD to build & deploy & manage containerised workloads
• Monitoring and Logging: Using tooling such as Prometheus, Loki, Grafana & ELK to monitor Kubernetes resources and Java workloads
• Source Control & CI/CD: Making use of GitHub & Github Actions for version control & CI/CD
• Operating Systems: Making use of Ansible and AWS tooling to manage unix environments (Red Hat Enterprise Linux)
• Building, Collaboration & Communicating the IDP: Strong communication skills within a team environment with an ability to effectively document processes and mentor engineers on best practices and platform use
• A Grasp of Backend Development: Hands‑on experience in designing, developing, and deploying highly maintainable backend services using Java, and experience in writing scripts to solve ad‑hoc problems
• Cloud Infrastructure: An intermediate understanding of AWS/Cloud services and best practices, e.g. the AWS Well‑Architected Framework
• Infrastructure as Code (AWS & Terraform): Experience using the AWS CDK & Terraform to write and manage infrastructure
• Architecture and Design Patterns: Familiarity with common design patterns and architectural principles, including Domain‑Driven Design (DDD), Event‑Driven Architecture (EDA), and distributed computing architecture
• Computer Networking: Knowledge/experience of core networking concepts, i.e. configuring computer networking policies, ip allocations, routing, dns, preferably with experience with AWS networking, i.e. VPCs, Subnets, NAT Gateways, Internet Gateways, Peering, VPC PrivateLink, Global Accelerators, Load Balancing etc.
• Database Management: Expertise in designing, optimising, and maintaining relational databases (e.g., MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL), including experience with event pipelining, i.e. using Apache Kafka

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Engineering
• 4+ years relevant work experience working as a Developer in a software development team building/running Java or C# applications
• 2+ years experience deploying, managing and rightsizing Kubernetes clusters, resources and underlying infrastructure
• 2+ years experience designing & operating public cloud environments
• Experience using GitOps / CI-CD workflows for infrastructure as code and Helm workload deployments

Benefits

• We believe in a People First approach, ensuring a culture where you can thrive and make a real difference

Your Career & Culture

• Career Growth: Delivering world‑class financial software is challenging, but your effort will earn you hands‑on experience with products used by millions, accelerating your career.
• Strong Teams: We keep teams small, focused, and collaborative to maximize impact
• Transparency: We openly discuss strategy, finances, and salaries. Mistakes are viewed as learning opportunities that we actively discuss
• Autonomy: We trust you. You're expected to seek out the data needed for informed decisions and manage your own time—knowing when to focus and when to recharge
• Shared Vision: You'll have the power to shape the vision of how we build the future of financial services

Practical Perks

• Here's how we support our culture:
• Flexible Work: Office‑first environment with flexible hours
• Generous Leave: Starting at 20 days per year.
• Office Perks (Cape Town): Fully‑stocked kitchen and daily catered lunch
• Social Life: Regular team activities like hikes, getaways, and dinners