Software Engineering Team Lead

[https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/1d985516-2a99-43c0-b591-957f5adaceb9/5ac97b31-49cd-4012-8bb0-5caf15e33c69/B25.png] Join our growing FinTech Engineering team! We're recruiting a Software Engineering Team Lead to spearhead the delivery of our new loan origination architecture, compliance systems, and pricing platform - infrastructure that will power M-KOPA's next phase of expansion across Africa. [https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/1d985516-2a99-43c0-b591-957f5adaceb9/0524125f-275f-4f87-83d9-7d2f25b72c9e/B13.png] THE IMPACT Your architecture will directly shape how millions of people access credit for the first time. We've already served over 7 million customers and unlocked more than $2 billion in credit since we began. Every system you design, every engineer you develop, and every decision you make contributes to a platform that's quite literally transforming financial inclusion across an entire continent 🌍 [https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/1d985516-2a99-43c0-b591-957f5adaceb9/0524125f-275f-4f87-83d9-7d2f25b72c9e/B13.png] THE OPPORTUNITY 🎯 Mission-driven engineering: Your daily work enables affordable smartphones, digital loans, and financial services for Africa's Every Day Earners — people for whom traditional finance simply doesn't work. 🏆 Global recognition: Join a FinTech company named by TIME 100 as one of the world's most influential and by the Financial Times as Africa's fastest-growing company for five consecutive years (2022–2026). 🚀 Scale that matters: You'll be architecting systems that process over 2 million payments daily across five markets — and building for the next 10 million customers. 🌱 Environmental impact: We're carbon-negative, having avoided 2.155 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions across our product portfolio. What You'll Do At M-KOPA, you'll lead a team of backend engineers through both greenfield and legacy projects, owning the full software lifecycle from design ideation through to production and eventual decommissioning. Our engineering teams work under a true DevOps culture — with infrastructure as code, observability, automated testing, and continuous delivery treated as first-order concerns, not afterthoughts. You'll set architectural direction, partner closely with your Product Manager counterpart on roadmap planning and prioritisation, and serve as a servant leader who grows the people around you while shipping high-quality, impactful software. Technical Environment 💻 - Languages & frameworks: C#/.NET - Cloud: We work in Azure, and welcome experience across AWS or GCP - Architecture: Event-driven systems and microservice development - we use Azure Service Bus, and welcome experience with similar messaging technologies such as Kafka or RabbitMQ - Infrastructure: Kubernetes, Docker - Observability: Prometheus, Grafana - Engineering culture: DevOps, infrastructure as code, automated testing across all environments including production, continuous delivery Our Engineering Approach 🚀 - Full ownership: Teams own their solutions end-to-end - from inception through production support to decommissioning. - Servant leadership: We lead by coaching and enabling, not directing. - Quality by default: Observability, monitoring, and automated testing are built in from day one. - Continuous improvement: We foster a culture of innovation within a supportive, dynamic team environment. - Product partnership: Engineering and Product work as genuine counterparts — planning together, prioritising together, delivering together. What You Need We're looking for an experienced, low-ego engineering leader who brings both technical depth and a genuine passion for growing people. Required Experience: - Strong hands-on background in C#/.NET backend development - Proven experience with Azure, AWS, or GCP - we work in Azure but welcome experience across major cloud providers - Solid understanding of event-driven architecture and microservice development - we use Azure Service Bus, and welcome experience with similar messaging technologies such as Kafka or RabbitMQ - Experience leading or mentoring engineers in a collaborative team environment - Ability to set technical direction and provide architectural guidance - Comfortable working with Product to shape roadmaps and drive delivery The Team You'll lead a close-knit, focused engineering team with real end-to-end ownership over a significant part of the M-KOPA platform - including loan origination, compliance systems, and a new pricing engine. You'll have a dedicated Product Manager as your counterpart and operate with genuine autonomy over technical direction. [https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/1d985516-2a99-43c0-b591-957f5adaceb9/bd6b1302-c24a-44bf-bbac-659215992cda/image.png] LOCATION & BENEFITS - 🌍 Fully remote role in UK and parts of Europe within UTC -1 to UTC +3 time zones - 💼 Work with diverse teams across the UK, Europe, and Africa - 📈 Professional development programmes and coaching partnerships - 👨‍👩‍👧 Family-friendly policies and flexible working arrangements - 💚 Well-being support and genuine career growth opportunities OUR MISSION 🌍 We create financial inclusion for the traditionally excluded through a fair, flexible, customer-centric financing model. We strive to drive greater inclusion of women, youth, and low-income communities. OUR IMPACT 💚 Our technology has created measurable change: - Connected 📱: 2.5 million first-time smartphone users connected to the mobile internet - Prosperous 💰: 70% of customers use M-KOPA products for income generation, with 35,000 livelihoods created for agents - Green 🌱: 2.155 million tonnes of CO₂ avoided through clean energy and circular economy products, with over 127,700 circular economy products provided Ready to build the systems that create real-world financial inclusion while leading a talented team of engineers? Apply Now! WHY M-KOPA? At M-KOPA, we empower our people to own their careers through diverse devel