Senior Solutions Architect

About the job

Who is Ezra?

Ezra provides B2B digital lending solutions for emerging markets in partnership with mobile and digital wallet operators and financial service providers. Ezra supports 24 operations in 23 countries, across Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Our key office locations are in Nairobi, Kenya and Dubai, UAE.

Our flagship products are Advance Credit Service (ACS), Nano and BNPL.

• ACS is an airtime or data advance offered to prepaid mobile subscribers at the point of low credit.
• Nano is a micro cash advance offered to mobile wallet users on demand.
• BNPL facilitates payment instalments for products and services

As a FinTech company, our business is entirely technology and data-driven, from determining subscriber eligibility, generating relevant offers, managing risk, loan issuance, recovery, optimizing performance and reporting, reconciliation and billing.

Each day we process approximately 21M loan requests and 1.4 TB of data across our markets. This process needs to be robust, reliable and secure.

But it doesn’t end there. We’re exploring new ways of using our platform and transactional data to improve our products and develop new product opportunities.

Context of the Role

As a Senior Solution Architect at Ezra, you will play a pivotal role in shaping our organisation’s technology landscape. This hands-on role requires a seasoned professional with a strong background in software engineering and backend system design. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams, clients, and stakeholders to design, develop, and implement high-impact, scalable solutions that drive business success. Reporting to the Manager of Solutions Architecture, you will significantly impact our projects and organisational growth.

Responsibilities

• Solution Development: Drive end-to-end solution development, from initial concept through implementation.
• Analysis and Design: Analyze different patterns and trends to propose architectural solutions that meet business requirements, in line with our architecture governance framework and technology roadmap.
• Technical Advisory: Act as a technical advisor to the platform owners, squad members, and software engineers throughout the solution lifecycle.
• Governance: Ensure adherence to all defined Enterprise Architecture standards, quality measures, and both functional and non-functional requirements.
• Standardization: Design Solutions for partners while maintaining the standardization of application.
• Enhancement: Propose architectural enhancements to improve security, agility, performance, and cost-effectiveness.
• Technology Leverage: Maximize the use of existing technology capabilities to meet business requirements.
• Resilience and Security: Promote resilient, secure, and cost-effective design, deployment, and integration patterns.
• Documentation: Present, justify, and document the introduction of new technology, design, integration, or deployment patterns as per the enterprise architecture governance framework.
• Trend Awareness: Maintain a high awareness of technology and industry trends.

Qualifications

• Educational Background: Master’s or bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems management, or a related field.
• Software Development: Over 4 years of experience in software development and backend system design.
• Industry Experience: Over 2 years of experience in the FinTech industry.
• Java and Spring: Extensive experience in development and design with Java and Spring.
• Architectural Principles: In-depth knowledge in microservices and SOA principles, guidelines, and supporting technology.
• Cloud Native: Experience in cloud-native principles, designs, and deployments.
• Resilient Solutions: Experience in developing critical, highly resilient, and secure solutions.
• Lifecycle Knowledge: Comprehensive understanding of the software development lifecycle, various technologies, frameworks, and coding standards.
• Integration Patterns: Knowledge of key integration patterns and tools such as event-based messaging, ETL, ESB, and microservice-based integration
• Multi-Tenancy: Experience working with multi-tenancy solutions.
• API Development: Proficient in best practices for API development and deployment.
• CI/CD Pipelines: Familiarity with Continuous Integration / Deployment pipelines.
• Technology Trends: Strong understanding of technology trends and their application in Financial Services.
• Cloud Experience: Working experience on a hybrid cloud model.
• Industry Insight: Awareness of the latest trends and technologies in the FinTech industry.

Skills and Attributes:

• Analytical Skills: Excellent analytical skills to understand long-term and short-term solution perspectives.
• Communication: Fluent in English; proficiency in French is a plus.
• Team Collaboration: Strong ability to work collaboratively in a team environment.
• Problem-Solving: Ability to think critically and solve complex technical problems.

To apply—