Senior Backend Engineer

About Tala

Tala is on a mission to unleash the economic power of the Global Majority – the 4 billion people overlooked by existing financial systems. With nearly half a billion dollars raised from equity and debt, we are serving millions of customers across three continents. Tala has been named by the Fortune Impact 20 list, CNBC's Disruptor 50 five years in a row, CNBC's World's Top Fintech Company, Forbes' Fintech 50 list for eight years running, and Chief's The New Era of Leadership Award. We are expanding across product offerings, countries and crypto and are looking for people who have an entrepreneurial spirit and are passionate about our mission.

By creating a unique platform that enables lending and other financial services around the globe, people in emerging markets are able to start and expand small businesses, manage day-to-day needs, and pursue their financial goals with confidence. Currently, over nine million people across Kenya, the Philippines, Mexico, and India have used Tala products. Due to our global team, we have a remote-first approach, and also have offices in Santa Monica, CA (HQ); Nairobi, Kenya; Mexico City, Mexico; Manila, the Philippines; and Bangalore, India.

Most Talazens join us because they connect with our mission. If you are energized by the impact you can make at Tala, we'd love to hear from you

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Senior Software Engineer to join our team. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in Java, Scala, or Kotlin, with a proven ability to design, develop, and deploy robust backend systems. This role involves contributing to core application logic, working with deployment infrastructure, and ensuring scalability and resilience of our services. The candidate should be comfortable with both independent work and collaborating with a cross-functional team.

• Develop, test, and deploy software solutions using Java, Scala, or Kotlin.
• Design and contribute to backend systems, making key architectural decisions.
• Work with deployment infrastructure and tooling, including CI/CD pipelines.
• Handle schema evolution and data migrations in production systems.
• Optimize backend systems for performance, including profiling, caching, and JVM tuning.
• Collaborate with product, frontend, and DevOps teams to coordinate dependencies and timelines.
• Ensure code quality and consistency through best practices and code reviews.
• Create and maintain clear and concise technical documentation.
• Participate in problem-solving for production issues and contribute to continuous improvement.
• Potentially mentor junior engineers.

• 5+ years of professional software development experience.
• Expertise in at least one of the following languages: Java, Scala, or Kotlin.
• Solid understanding of software development principles, design patterns, and best practices.
• Experience with asynchronous or concurrent programming.
• Experience building scalable and resilient backend services.
• Experience with REST or gRPC APIs.
• Experience with databases (SQL and/or NoSQL) and data migrations.
• Familiarity with message brokers or event-driven architectures (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ).
• Proficiency in CI/CD practices and tools (e.g., Jenkins, Maven, Gradle, sbt).
• Experience with containerization and orchestration tools like Docker or Kubernetes.
• Experience with Cloud infrastructure (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure) and deploying services at the infra level.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Our vision is to build a new financial ecosystem where everyone can participate on equal footing and access the tools they need to be financially healthy. We strongly believe that inclusion fosters innovation and we're proud to have a diverse global team that represents a multitude of backgrounds, cultures, and experience. We hire talented people regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.