Senior Software Engineer

Who are we?

Sanlam Fintech is a newly established digital first business within the Sanlam Group on a mission to democratize financial advice and solutions for everyone across the African continent. We exist to pioneer inclusive financial confidence helping people build strong foundations to bridge the gap in generational wealth. Our culture us that of agility and constant deployment, we believe in learning fast, learning cheap and learning forward. Our aim is to provide a work environment where knowledge workers can accelerate the development of their ideas and bring innovation to market, at the same time provide compelling career and development proposition that will enable them to realize their dreams.

Position Overview

The Software Engineer position is a critical role, responsible for guidance of the wider team and delivering efficient software in a high trust, high-performance environment. Comprising a diverse team of skilled, motivated and curious talent from both local and international locations, the role can be fully remote, hybrid or office based. Our relatively flat organisational structure lends itself to open communication, agility and collaboration. The role reports to a Technical Lead (who reports to the Chief Technology Officer).

What will you do?

• Strategic delivery: Contribute to the team's technical trajectory, ensuring alignment with major technical decisions and contributing to shaping our strategic goals.
• Mentorship and Leadership: Enable the professional growth of more junior team members, nurturing their development into exceptional professionals while leading by example in our high-trust, high-performance culture.
• Code Excellence: Deliver high-quality code, upholding our commitment to excellence and customer satisfaction.
• Innovative Tech Stack: Utilize a modern, yet pragmatic Tech Stack to build a highly scalable distributed system, ensuring our technological capabilities remain relevant.
• Continuous Learning: Promote a culture of continuous learning and innovation, demonstrating this personally - to ensuring we remain agile and responsive to business needs and market trends.

Qualifications And Experience

Degree in Computer Science and IT. Senior Engineers need extensive experience and/or understanding of designing, developing and testing distributed, high-volume and highly reliable software. Business and operational awareness, as well as experience with cloud-based infrastructure is also required.

Programming Languages & Coding

• Despite our language agnostic approach, proficiency in languages used in full-stack / back-end Software Development (Python, Java, C++ etc for example) is required
• Proficiency at reading, reviewing, understanding code
• Ability to articulate language differences, implementation and the build & execution process: For example strongly vs weakly typed, static vs dynamic, compiled vs interpreted

Data Structures, Algorithms & Algorithmic Problem Solving

• Ability to articulate the pros / cons of relevant data structures for the use of minimum memory space and execution in the shortest possible time. This includes situations in which a data structure would be applicable, and why
• Ability to suggests possible / relevant algorithms when developing and optimising solutions for time and space complexity. This includes the ability to discuss options and trade-offs; also in instances where scope increases and solutions have to adapt

Engineering & Operational Excellence

• Understanding of scalability, robustness, operational visibility and agility
• Understanding of distributed systems and designing these solutions
• Experience working on projects involving the design and implementation of scalable systems
• Knowledge of services like AWS VPC, Auto Scaling, serverless computing, storage (EBS, S3), containers, DNS, etc) is preferred yet not a prerequisite. All experience with relevant Cloud-based technologies are beneficial in this role
• Understanding of / experience in monitoring, metrics, visibility, health, fault tolerance
• Experience with / understanding of load balancing and health checking
• Experience with / understanding of APIs, auth
• Experience with / understanding of databases and persistence
• Experience with / understanding of scalable architecture for systems implementation

Technical Leadership

Experience / a keen interest in mentorship, teamwork and collaboration

How You'll Think

• You are high agency: Looking for ways to do, instead of reasons not to.
• Where some see impossible, you see a way: Turning obstacles into opportunity, chance into change.
• You love creating more with less: Knowing that the biggest impact is born of the smallest acts.
• You seek out and value different perspectives: Believing that when we change how we look at things, how things look for us also changes. Making tomorrow not just different, but better.

What You'll Enjoy

• Being in a high ownership, high ambiguity, high autonomy environment where the impact of your work matters. The ideal environment for your capability growth.
• Learn from the best. Get guidance from some of the most seasoned professionals around. Our mentorship vibe is all about growing together, both professionally and personally.
• Diving into projects that touch the lives of millions.
• Working with modern technologies

Build a successful career with us

We’re all about building strong, lasting relationships with our employees. We know that you have hopes for your future – your career, your personal development and of achieving great things. We pride ourselves in helping our employees to realise their worth. Through its five business clusters – Sanlam Fintech, Sanlam Life and Savings, Sanlam Investment Group, Sanlam Allianz, Santam, as well as MiWay and the Group Office – the group provides many opportunities for growth and development.

Core Competencies

Cultivates innovation - Contributing strategically

Customer focus - Contributing strategically

Drives results - Contributing strategically

Collaborates - Contributing strategically

Being resilient - Contributing strategically

Turnaround time

The shortlisting process will only start once the application due date has been reached. The time taken to complete this process will depend on how far you progress and the availability of managers.

Our commitment to transformation

The Sanlam Group is committed to achieving transformation and embraces diversity. This commitment is what drives us to achieve a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace as we believe that these are key components to ensuring a thriving and sustainable business in South Africa. The Group's Employment Equity plan and targets will be considered as part of the selection process.