Backend Engineer

About Kora 

Kora is the marketplace for everything payments. We offer a robust payment API for payment collections, disbursements and conversions for businesses anywhere in Africa. 

Our vision, which is at the core of what we do every day, is to create a world void of digital financial barriers. We are committed to delivering reliable, secure, and easy-to-use digital financial solutions to every single customer with a guarantee that it is improving their lives. To achieve this mission, we need people like you. 

We strongly believe in our ability to find Water in the Desert and pick the Sands in the Ocean.

We value positive energy, and clear communication and are committed to building an inclusive environment for people from every background.

Requirements

This is a high-impact, collaborative role responsible for driving outcomes across the product and engineering team. You would be working with relevant stakeholders across the different teams within the organization to help define and implement tools and solutions to meet the business objectives.

The role covers all stages, from requirements gathering, systems design, implementation, testing and operational support.

As a Backend Engineer at Kora, you will focus on building new scalable features, optimizing and maintaining existing features, participating heavily in code and technical reviews, working closely with other engineers in the team to guide with implementation and technical direction, research and suggest new ways to improve our application and processes.

You will be heavily involved in designing, optimising, and implementing the next phase for our applications and backend infrastructure as we continue to scale and meet the ever-growing demands of our merchants and the business.

Reporting Relationships & Stakeholder Engagement:

• Working collaboratively with our CTO (Chief Technology Officer), Product Management, Product Design, Business, Compliance, and IT Team to ensure each merchant is onboarded in a professional, timely manner.
• Strong working relationship with Managing Team / Directors / Team Leads around the business.

What you’ll be doing

1. Designing, implementing, and maintaining secure large-scale payment solutions to support our merchants and the business
2. Collaborating with relevant stakeholders to improve and optimize the reliability and performance of current applications, and implementations.
3. Collaborating with relevant stakeholders to improve engineering standards, tooling, and processes.
4. Participating actively in code and technical reviews.
5. Document development phases and monitor, and debug systems.

What you’ll need

1. 3+ years of experience building large-scale and data-intensive applications. This includes but is not limited to expertise in building large-scale and performant applications, working with large data, microservices, distributed systems, data and database optimization, etc.
2. Familiarity with our commonly used technology choices including Node.js, Typescript, and MySQL.
3. Experience working on low latency, high throughput distributed systems & with micro-service architectures.
4. Attention to detail.
5. Excellent communication and prioritization skills.
6. Deliberate drive to constantly improve and get better.
7. Experience engaging in collaborative multi-functional teams.
8. Experience with test frameworks and writing quality tests.
9. A strong desire to give our merchants a great experience using our payment infrastructure.

Reporting Structure: This role reports to the Engineering Lead.

Interview process 

Below is the interview process you can expect for this role. It may look like a lot of steps, but rest assured that we move quickly and the steps are designed to help you get the information needed to determine if we’re the right fit for you… Interviewing is a two-way street, after all! 

We expect the interview process to take a maximum of 3 weeks and an average of 2.5 hours in total. Please note that the interview is virtual.

👋 Introduction Stage - we have initial conversations to get acquainted with you and overall experience.

[15m] Recruiter Screen - Abayomi Ishmael 

[7 days max] Take-home Assessment/Project 

Project Review -  The Engineering team
Feedback from the Recruiter (Abayomi Ishmael)

🧑‍💻 [60m] Team Interview Stage (Engineering team) - We proceed to explore your professional background in greater detail and facilitate introductions to team members, including those from various cross-functional areas.

[60m] Cultural Fit Interview (Our Core Values) - At this stage, you'll engage in a conversation with Kora's COO, the Head of People and Culture, and the head of the team you’re being considered for. The aim is to understand you better and assess the alignment of your beliefs and values with Kora's distinctive culture. We'd like to emphasize that there are no right or wrong answers expected. However, we encourage you to maintain a positive attitude during this session.

Please note that you are welcome to ask questions and inquire during this process. We assure you of complete transparency throughout the interview process.

Working hours

Given that we are an all-remote company and hire almost anywhere in the world, we don’t have a location requirement for this role. However, your working hours must coincide with 9:00 am - 5:00 pm WAT for at least 40 hours/week.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Kora is an equal opportunity employer dedicated to building an inclusive and diverse workforce. All employment decisions are based on qualifications, experience, and business needs. We strongly encourage applications from underrepresented communities and diverse ethnic groups to apply.

 Please feel free to inform us if you need any accommodations to facilitate your participation in the recruitment process. Any details you share will be used solely to ensure we can support and accommodate your needs appropriately

If you require more information on our HR Data Privacy, please visit Here

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Sponsored and tailored training
• Paid parental leave
• Paid time-off
• Flexible work style
• Annual performance bonus
• Low-interest loans
• Group Life Insurance
• Access to up to four therapy sessions monthly
• Day off on your birthday 🎂 🎁 🎉
• Employee interest groups that provide supportive communities within Kora
• Great company culture and the opportunity to work with a highly collaborative team building something great!

Note: We recognise imposter syndrome is real - any candidate who does not perfectly fit every characteristic of this role is still strongly encouraged to apply.