Backend Engineer

1. Role Title & Level

Backend Engineer
Level: Senior (6years of experience)

2. Engagement Summary

· Engagement Type: Contract / Secondment

· Squad Context: Embedded within the Visa–client joint Tech Squad; responsible for backend development, host changes, operational processes, and integration support across all initiatives

· Expected Duration: [12 months]

· Primary Location: [Nairobi, Kenya] — Expectation of days in the office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager

· Sprint Cadence: Fortnightly agile sprints

· Reporting Line: [Reports to Technical Program Manager, TPM]

3. Role Purpose

We are looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to play a critical role in building solutions. The engineer will take responsibility for backend domains or major features and drive them end-to-end from design through delivery. You will be a valued member of a collaborative team, working closely with crossfunctional stakeholders to translate business requirements into robust technical solutions.

4. Key Responsibilities

· Design and implement backend changes required for Tokenisation, including token service enrollment flows, host system changes, and operational backend processes.

· Develop and integrate CYBS (CyberSource) service backend components into the M-Pesa payment stack, following agreed integration architecture.

· Implement backend support for push provisioning app enhancements, including secure token storage, provisioning state management, and notification services.

Supporting Responsibilities

· Build and maintain logging, monitoring, and alerting infrastructure for all initiative-specific backend services, ensuring operational visibility pre- and post-production launch.

· Execute and support backend functional testing, including integration tests, regression suites, and performance benchmarking; log and remediate defects to agreed SLAs.

· Collaborate with team on end-to-end integration design, ensuring backend services expose well-formed, documented APIs.

· Support knowledge transfer by co-authoring technical runbooks, system design documentation, and onboarding guides for client engineering counterparts.

5. Measurable Outcomes & Deliverables

First 30 Days

· Development environment fully configured; access to relevant codebases, repositories, and sandbox environments confirmed.

· Map all backend service dependencies across Tokenisation, Visa Direct, CYBS, and push provisioning into a shared dependency register.

· Attend all Scrum ceremonies and contribute to sprint planning with estimated, clearly scoped backend tasks

· Logging and monitoring baseline agreed; instrumentation plan drafted.

Days 31–60

· Tokenization host changes implemented and validated in sandbox; functional test cases passing.

· Visa Direct backend configuration and transaction processing components built and tested in sandbox.

· CYBS backend integration components developed; unit and integration test coverage on new code.

· Monitoring and alerting hooks operational for at least one initiative; alert thresholds configured.

Days 61–90

· Tokenization backend changes promoted to certification environment; all functional and regression test cases passing.

· Visa Direct backend production-ready: transaction quality checks passing, health check endpoints operational.

· CYBS integration backend components deployed to UAT / staging environment; test script execution completed.

· Backend architecture decision record (ADR) produced for at least one significant design choice during the engagement.

· Technical runbook produced for all backend components delivered; client engineers onboarded to operate and maintain systems.

Ongoing KPIs

· Deliver backend features reliably in line with sprint commitments and agreed scope.

· Maintain high code quality through strong testing practices and low defect escape.

· Respond effectively to critical backend issues and support stable production operations.

· Contribute to the reliability, observability, and continuous improvement of backend services.

· Transfer knowledge to client engineers through documentation, pairing, and shared delivery practices.

6. Stakeholders & Ways of Working

Agile Ceremonies: All sprint ceremonies; leads or contributes to technical refinement of backend stories; participates in daily stand-ups.

Reporting Cadence:

· Sprint-level: backend delivery status reported at sprint review.

· Ad-hoc: technical blockers escalated to API Integration Engineer or Scrum Master within 4 hours.

Cross-Functional Touchpoints:

· API Integration Engineer (integration design, API contract alignment).

· Frontend Engineers (backend API endpoints, data contracts).

· Data Scientist (data pipeline backend components, PAN extraction).

· Internal Operations and QA teams (testing, production readiness).

· Visa technical and certification contacts for host change validation.

7. Required Skills & Experience

· 6 years backend engineering experience, with at least 4 years in payments, fintech, or financial services.

· Strong proficiency in one or more: Java, Python, Go, Node.js, or equivalent enterprise-grade backend languages.

· Deep experience with payment platform integrations, including host-side changes, transaction processing, and tokenization or push payment systems.

· Proven ability to design and document scalable, resilient backend architectures.

· Experience leading code reviews and mentoring junior/intermediate engineers.

Both Levels:

· Experience with RESTful API development and consumption.

· Familiarity with database technologies (relational and/or NoSQL) and SQL querying.

· Understanding of security best practices in payment systems (PCI-DSS awareness, secure coding).

· Experience with logging, monitoring, and observability tooling.

· Strong written communication; ability to produce technical documentation.

8. Preferred / Nice-to-Have Skills

· Direct experience with M-Pesa backend systems or comparable mobile money platforms.

· Knowledge of EMV tokenization, Visa Direct push payment flows, or CyberSource/CYBS integration.

· Experience with event-driven or messaging architectures (Kafka, RabbitMQ, or equivalent).

· Containerization and orchestration experience (Docker, Kubernetes, or equivalent).

· Familiarity with cloud-native architectures (AWS / GCP / Azure).

· Experience with performance/load testing of backend services.

9. Tools & Technologies

· Backend languages: Java, Python, Go, Node.js, or equivalent

· Databases: PostgreSQL / MySQL / Oracle / MongoDB / equivalent

· API frameworks: Spring Boot, Express.js, FastAPI, or equivalent

· Testing: JUnit, pytest, Postman, or equivalent; test automation frameworks

· Version control: Git (GitHub / GitLab / Bitbucket)

· Containerization: Docker, Kubernetes where applicable

· Issue tracking: Jira / Azure DevOps

· Documentation: Confluence / SharePoint

10. Contract/Secondment Notes

· This is a contract/secondment engagement. All resources must adhere to client and Visa information security, data handling, and confidentiality obligations, including PCI-DSS requirements applicable to payment system development.

· Performance will be assessed on a deliverables basis, with formal reviews at 30, 60, and 90 days.

· Engineers are expected to actively contribute to knowledge transfer and client team upskilling as a core engagement obligation.