The team includes alumni from Wise, Stripe, Monzo, Revolut, and CashApp, emphasizing urgency, deep thinking, and customer-first approaches. NALA offers ownership, impact, and the chance to change global payments forever.

About the Role

Job Title: Lead Engineer - Rafiki
Employment Type: Full-time
Department: Engineering, Backend Engineering
Location: Hybrid

Your Mission

As a Lead Backend Engineer, you will shape Rafiki’s backend systems to ensure the payment infrastructure remains fast, reliable, and scalable. Responsibilities include leading engineering projects, mentoring teammates, and building tools that power financial innovation across Africa.

Your Responsibilities

• Lead the design and development of Go-based backend services optimized for scale and reliability.
• Design and evolve Rafiki’s APIs for seamless client integrations across global markets.
• Build internal tools that enhance treasury and finance operations with real-time data visibility.
• Implement core compliance infrastructure, including KYB, AML, and fraud detection features.
• Drive automation of operational workflows and ensure high system uptime with failover solutions.
• Use metrics and insights to guide technical decisions and product prioritization.
• Coach engineers and foster a culture of high performance and engineering excellence.

Must-have Requirements

• 5+ years building scalable, reliable backend systems using Go.
• Experience in high-growth or startup environments.
• Deep knowledge of RDBMSs like Postgres or MySQL.
• Familiarity with event-driven architectures and tools like Kafka or RabbitMQ.
• Strong cloud infrastructure experience, preferably with AWS and Terraform.
• Comfortable working asynchronously with global teams via tools like Slack and Jira.
• Passionate about payments and Rafiki’s mission.
• Fluent in written and spoken English.

Nice to Have Requirements

• Fintech or payments experience.
• Prior work in a tech startup.
• Exposure to information security practices.
• Experience designing polished, developer-friendly APIs (REST/GraphQL).

Success Metrics

3-Month Metrics

• Treasury tooling deployed with real-time provider balance visibility.
• Design and implementation plan for finance ledger and reconciliation system.
• Stable, high-quality backend contributions and peer mentorship.

6-Month Metrics

• Go-based services and APIs powering at least one new financial product.
• Improved infrastructure reliability with automated failover in place.
• Significant engineering velocity and reduced support overhead via system automation.

Interview Process

1. Submit your application through our ATS Workable (no cover letter needed).
2. If successful, you will go through a four-stage interview process:
   • 30 mins: Interview with the Talent Team.
   • 1 hour: Coding Challenge (pair programming exercise).
   • 1 hour: Architecture Interview (architecture challenge).
   • 30 mins: Interview with the CTO or Hiring Manager.

Benefits

• 35 Days Off: 27 days + 8 Bank Holidays if UK-based.
• Birthday Leave: Bonus day off for your birthday month.
• Enhanced Parental Leave: 16 weeks full pay for primary caregiver, 4 weeks for secondary caregiver (post-probation).
• Global Workspace: Access to WeWork locations worldwide.
• Learning Budget: $1000 annually for learning and development.
• Hybrid Working: Work in the Canary Wharf Office 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.