About the Company
NALA is building payments for the next billion, focusing on faster, smarter, and fairer transfers for everyone. Since 2022, the company has grown its business 120x and expanded its team from 9 to over 150. NALA operates two core products:
- Consumer App: Facilitates cheaper, faster, and more reliable cross-border payments for the global diaspora, allowing users to send money from the UK, US, and EU to Africa and Asia.
- B2B Payments Infrastructure: Powers global payments.
The team comprises alumni from Wise, Stripe, Monzo, Revolut, and CashApp, who are committed to urgency, deep thinking, and customer-first approaches. At NALA, employees experience ownership, impact, and the opportunity to change global payments forever.
About the Role
Job Title: Engineering Manager - NALA
Location: London, England, United Kingdom
Employment Type: Full-time
Department: Engineering
Your Mission
As an Engineering Manager, you will support the scaling of NALA’s product and engineering organization as it grows across Africa and Asia. You will lead a squad of engineers, collaborate with product leaders, and drive technical excellence while remaining hands-on when necessary.
Your Responsibilities
- Partner with engineers to design robust technical solutions and deliver high-quality features.
- Write code, contribute to system design, and guide architecture decisions.
- Manage and coach 5–6 engineers, conducting effective 1:1s, feedback sessions, and career development planning.
- Collaborate with other Engineering Managers and Product Managers to align squad goals and processes.
- Build a high-performing team culture rooted in accountability, learning, and autonomy.
- Hire and onboard new engineers to support rapid growth.
- Report on delivery progress, system performance, and team health to leadership.
Must-have Requirements
- 8+ years of engineering experience, including 2+ years managing high-performing engineers.
- Empathetic leadership style focused on coaching and growth.
- Strong experience writing Go and building scalable, high-performance systems.
- Proven delivery of complex products across the full development lifecycle.
- Experience working asynchronously with globally distributed teams.
- Strong time management skills and ability to balance technical and managerial responsibilities.
- Outcome-driven mindset with business and technical acumen.
- Fluent in written and spoken English.
Nice to Have Requirements
- Fintech or payments experience.
- Previous work in early-stage or scaling startups.
- Information security awareness.
- Experience designing robust, developer-friendly APIs (e.g., REST, GraphQL).
Success Metrics
3-Month Metrics
- Squad is delivering on the product roadmap with high code quality.
- Strong team health indicators and clear growth plans for each direct report.
- Hands-on contributions to critical technical designs and features.
6-Month Metrics
- Engineers are progressing on career paths, with measurable improvements in performance.
- Squad velocity and reliability improved via stronger processes and culture.
- Key technical systems are scalable and well-documented.
Interview Process
- Initial Interview: 30 mins with the Talent Team to discuss motivations and experiences.
- Coding Challenge: 1 hour of pair programming with two engineers.
- Architecture & Management Interview: 1.5 hours solving an architecture challenge and discussing leadership.
- Final Interview: 30 mins with the CTO or Hiring Manager to discuss motivation and questions about the business.
Benefits
- 35 Days Off: 27 days + 8 Bank Holidays if UK-based.
- Birthday Leave: One bonus day off in your birthday month.
- Enhanced Parental Leave: 16 weeks of full pay for the primary caregiver and 4 weeks for the secondary caregiver after the probationary period.
- Global Workspace: Access to WeWork locations worldwide.
- Learning Budget: $1000 annually for learning and development.
For those working in the London office:
- Hybrid Working: In-office work four days a week (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday).
- Sarabi: Themed snacks and Friday lunch to build team relationships.
- Monthly Socials: Fun social events every month.
- Free Coffee: Barista-style coffee available.
