Backend Engineer

1. Role Title & Level

Backend Engineer
Level: Senior (6+ years 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.