Backend Software Engineer, Kenya - Remote

About Branch 

Imagine a world where every person has improved access to financial services. People could start new businesses, pay for their children’s education, and cover their emergency medical bills – the possibilities to improve life are endless. 

Branch is a global technology company revolutionizing financial access for millions of underserved banking customers today across Africa and India.  By leveraging the rapid adoption of smartphones, machine learning and other technology, Branch is pioneering new ways to improve access and value for those overlooked by banks. From instant loans to market-leading investment yields, Branch offers a variety of products that help our customers be financially empowered.

Branch’s mission-driven team is led by the co-founders of Kiva.org and one of the earliest product leaders of PayPal. Branch has raised over $100 million from leading Silicon Valley investors, including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Visa. 

 With over 32 million downloads, Branch is one of the most popular finance apps in the world.

Job Overview

Branch launched in Kenya in 2015 and has seen rapid adoption and growth. In 2022, we plan to grow our engineering team in Kenya significantly. As part of this team, you will work closely with our global engineering team (distributed across three continents) to strengthen the capabilities of our existing product and build out new products for Branch. Example projects include: Building new functionality for our Credit and Wallet products; helping improve the reliability of our core payments and banking systems; architecting data pipelines and machine learning models for credit underwriting; and more.

As a company, we are passionate about our customers, fearless in the face of barriers, and driven by data. As an engineering team, we value bottom-up innovation and decentralized decision-making. We believe the best ideas can come from anyone in the company, and we are working hard to create an environment where everyone feels empowered to propose solutions to the challenges we face. We are looking for individuals who thrive in a fast-moving, innovative, and customer-focused setting.

Responsibilities

• Build out backend functionality for existing and new product lines such as Credit, Wallet, Bill Pay, and others.
• Integrate with various third-party systems, including payment systems, identity providers, and messaging platforms.
• Scale our backend services and pipelines to ever-growing levels of traffic and complexity.
• Help build flexible and easy-to-use tools used by our operations teams to handle customer inquiries and other business processes.

Qualifications

• You have strong experience (2+ years) of building backend software for web-based or mobile products.
• You have a solid foundation in computer science fundamentals, distributed systems, data storage, and agile development methodologies.
• You are pragmatic and combine a strong understanding of technology and product needs to arrive at the best solution for a given problem.
• You are highly entrepreneurial and thrive in taking ownership of your own impact. You proactively identify problems and propose solutions. 
• You are an excellent collaborator and communicator. You listen to others and seek to understand, but aren’t afraid to speak your mind and debate in a respectful manner when you disagree. 
• You are excited by the prospect of working in a distributed team and company, working with teammates from all over the world.

Benefits of Joining

• Mission-driven, fast-paced and entrepreneurial environment
• Competitive salary and equity package
• A collaborative and flat company culture
• Fully-paid Premium Plan medical coverage
• Generous vacation policy
• Generous child bonding leave policy
• Pension Benefit
• Discretionary trips to our offices across the globe, with global travel medical insurance (when it’s safe to travel!)
• Flexible working hours
• Weekly team meals and social events (virtual for now!)

Branch International is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The company does not and will not discriminate in employment on any basis prohibited by applicable law. We’re looking for more than just qualifications -- so if you’re unsure that you meet the criteria, please do not hesitate to apply!

Location

This is a remote role. We are open to working with you provided you are able to work within the East African Time (EAT) zone.