Backend Engineer

At Opareta, we are building digital infrastructure and tools to rethink how mobile money agent networks operate. Our platform is designed to help mobile money agents digitize their operations, access data insights, and gain access to working capital and other products to grow their businesses sustainably.

The Engineering team is expanding and we are looking for an experienced backend engineer to join it, collaborate with our existing engineering team members, commercial teams and our clients to build functional, scalable, production ready solutions built with high code quality. “Users First” is the cornerstone of our operating principles at Opareta, and in this role, you will help us understand the underlying factors that drive agent happiness and success.

This role is for a skilled Backend Engineer (BE) with at least 3 years of professional experience to design, develop, and maintain scalable backend applications using TypeScript and NestJS. You’ll work on Opareta’s mission-critical financial services platform serving field agent networks across multiple African markets, handling real money transactions that directly affect thousands of agents’ livelihoods.

This position is fully remote, with a preference for candidates living in Kampala or Nairobi, where we have offices.

About you

3-5+ years in a similar position (BE with 3+ years of experience in TypeScript/NestJS • Financial Services • Building, Deploying Multi-Market solutions)

You have experience and are familiar with the following terms or technologies: TypeScript/Node.js (3+ years), NestJS (modules, guards, interceptors), RESTful API design, PostgreSQL (schema design, query optimization, indexing), TypeORM migrations, Redis caching, Firebase Auth integration, OAuth2/JWT, Google Cloud Pub/Sub or similar message queues, webhook/callback handling, SMS parsing & transaction matching, payment provider integrations, financial reconciliation logic, peer code reviews, Jest unit/E2E testing, API documentation (Swagger/OpenAPI), Git/GitHub workflows, Docker concepts, production debugging & support.

Bonus points

Fintech/mobile money experience, GCP (Cloud Run, Cloud Tasks, Pub/Sub, Cloud SQL), Sentry, Prometheus/Grafana, Fastify, SMS workflows, transaction reconciliation systems, multi-tenant architecture, i18n, financial solutions compliance knowledge.

You get to

• Build mission-critical financial infrastructure handling real money transactions for thousands of African field agents, where every transaction directly impacts their livelihoods and requires 100% accuracy
• Design scalable APIs and data pipelines that process thousands of SMS-based transactions daily, reconciling payments across multiple providers, currencies, and regulatory environments with zero discrepancies
• Solve complex technical challenges in production financial systems - from optimizing databases handling millions of transactions to debugging issues where every minute of downtime costs agents income
• Partner with operations teams to transform manual workflows into automated solutions, reducing settlement times from days to minutes while adapting to local market requirements across Africa
• Drive financial inclusion by building technology that enables unbanked populations to access digital financial services, directly contributing to economic empowerment in underserved communities
• Lead technical decisions on architecture, performance optimization, and integration strategies for a mature fintech platform with zero-downtime requirements and extreme accuracy demands

Expectations for communication and working norms

• Share weekly written updates on workstreams you’re leading and proactively communicate blockers and delays
• Be open and ready to contribute to ongoing client meeting agendas for projects you lead or are involved in, or leading problem-solving calls when needed
• Be open and ready to persistently follow up with engineering leads when there are dependencies or struggles in meeting timelines
• Be open and ready to speaking directly to corporate clients and agents, especially while on call

If you are interested in joining our team but don’t tick every box, we still encourage you to apply. We are building a diverse team whose skills, experiences and background complement one other. We are happy to consider where you might be able to make the biggest impact.

Opareta is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity. All qualified candidates regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, race, orientation or religion are encouraged to apply.