Tala
Tala
Tala is a fintech company building accessible digital financial services for people underserved by traditional institutions. Through its money app, Tala offers credit, payments, savings, and transfers in Kenya, Mexico, the Philippines, and India. Its use of artificial intelligence and machine learning supports more personalized financial experiences, including real-time money management and digital financial identities. Tala’s teams work on products designed to expand access to financial tools and help customers manage money with greater flexibility.

Senior Backend Engineer at Tala — India Remote

Lead Java-based microservices and API development for Tala’s AI-native credit infrastructure. Own reliable backend delivery, incident response, service design, and engineering mentorship.

Description

  • Build, operate, and evolve backend services, APIs, and data integration layers
  • Write and present engineering design documents (EDDs)
  • Design and optimize database schemas and queries
  • Deliver project outcomes while protecting quality and reducing technical debt
  • Own domain technologies and assess relevant industry developments
  • Set a high standard in code and design reviews
  • Produce clean, maintainable code that follows established standards
  • Strengthen testing infrastructure and expand backend module coverage
  • Review AI-assisted changes to the standard expected of hand-written code
  • Define alerting, SLIs, and SLOs while improving backend observability
  • Respond to previously uncovered incidents, improve runbooks, lead technical response, and document RCAs
  • Diagnose and resolve issues across development and production environments
  • Own domain roadmap execution and contribute to quarterly and sprint planning
  • Identify blockers early and escalate them with impact assessments and proposed options
  • Partner with Product and business stakeholders to clarify requirements and define feature success
  • Deliver domain solutions while owning service design and implementation end to end
  • Keep tickets accurate and documentation complete
  • Collaborate across time zones through asynchronous communication
  • Coach junior and mid-level engineers
  • Provide technical leadership and mentorship to Backend Engineers developing or extending complex modules

Requirements

  • Communicate fluently in English, including in writing
  • Design, build, and operate applications using Java, Kotlin, and/or Scala
  • Work with a web framework such as Spring
  • Lead and deliver multiple domain-significant projects validated in production
  • Build large-scale consumer applications on AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure using microservices architecture
  • Bring subject-matter expertise in your domain and understand adjacent domains and broader company architecture
  • Design services and dependencies for security, maintainability, operability, and scale
  • Author and defend engineering design documents (EDDs)
  • Demonstrate expert knowledge of REST API design and development for mobile and web
  • Bring strong relational database experience with MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or MS SQL
  • Bring strong non-relational database experience with Cassandra, Redshift, DynamoDB, or HDFS
  • Define alert thresholds, SLIs, SLOs, and telemetry
  • Implement graceful degradation and monitor newly released features
  • Co-own Acceptance Test coverage decisions with SDET
  • Apply ISO-27001, ISO-27701, and OWASP secure coding practices
  • Remediate vulnerabilities within established SLAs
  • Use AI fluently by defining acceptance criteria, creating reusable context assets, prompts, and skills, and validating AI-generated code
  • Demonstrate expert proficiency in Agile development
  • Prioritize effectively and communicate clearly in a fast-paced environment
  • Show strong initiative for independent learning and work

Benefits

  • Meaningful opportunities for career growth and professional development
  • A collaborative and supportive team environment

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