About this role.
Tala is hiring a Senior Backend Engineer to build and maintain backend services, REST APIs, database integrations, and production infrastructure for its credit platform. The role requires at least five years of experience with Java, Kotlin, or Scala, a framework such as Spring, cloud platforms, and microservices-based consumer applications. Core responsibilities include system design, code and design reviews, database performance tuning, testing, troubleshooting, and improving monitoring and alerting. The ideal candidate works independently in an Agile environment and brings strong expertise in scalable backend architecture for high-reliability financial products.
Role DNA
A quick view of the complexity, pace, ownership and collaboration implied by the job description.
Job Complexity
4/5Pace & Pressure
4/5Autonomy Level
4/5Communication Load
4/5Salary analysis
Estimated compensation compared with the broader US market for similar roles.
Core skills
Skills and capabilities most closely associated with this opportunity.
Sample interview questions
I would begin by clarifying throughput, latency, consistency, and regulatory requirements. I would use stateless services behind load balancing, durable asynchronous processing for non-blocking work, idempotency keys for submissions, carefully designed data models, and comprehensive monitoring. I would also define failure handling, audit trails, access controls, and load-testing criteria before launch.
I would first use dashboards, traces, logs, and recent deployment history to isolate whether latency originates in the application, database, downstream dependency, or infrastructure. I would compare affected endpoints and cohorts, inspect resource saturation and slow queries, then mitigate through rollback, scaling, caching, query optimization, or traffic controls as appropriate. After restoration, I would document root cause and add alerts or tests to prevent recurrence.
I use versioned migrations, backward-compatible additive changes, and phased deployments so old and new application versions can coexist. For large tables, I plan online migration approaches, index changes, backfills, and rollback paths carefully. I also validate performance in staging with representative data and monitor query behavior after release.
I review for correctness, security, maintainability, API contracts, failure modes, observability, and operational impact rather than focusing only on style. I ask whether the design handles retries, idempotency, data consistency, and scale appropriately. My feedback is specific and constructive, and I use reviews as an opportunity to align the team on engineering standards.
I would establish structured logs with correlation IDs, service-level metrics for traffic, errors, latency, and resource use, plus distributed traces across dependent services. I would define actionable alerts tied to user-impacting thresholds and build dashboards for key operational and business flows. Finally, I would validate that on-call engineers can diagnose common incidents using the new telemetry.
About Tala
Tala is AI-native credit infrastructure for the global majority, combining proprietary risk intelligence with an expanding network of capital and distribution partners to power credit access at scale. Backed by more than $500 million in funding, Tala has distributed more than $7 billion in capital to more than 13 million customers across Africa, Latin America, and Asia—building one of the most robust datasets on thin-file borrowers anywhere in the world. Our mission is simple yet bold: to unleash the economic power of the global majority. We are looking for daring, data-driven leaders passionate about building the trust and credit infrastructure for the global majority.
Our pioneering work and proven impact have earned us consistent recognition, including being named to:
CNBC’s Disruptor 50 for five years.
CNBC’s World’s Top Fintech Companies for two consecutive years.
Forbes’ Fintech 50 list for nine consecutive years.
Visionary investors, persuaded by the economic power of the global majority, have committed half a billion dollars in equity and debt to Tala’s success.
Given the global nature of our team, we operate on a remote-first approach with office hubs 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!
What You’ll Do
- Design, develop, and maintain robust backend services, APIs, and data integration layers that power key product features.
- Review design documents, perform code reviews, and weigh in on implementation choices from other technical teams.
- Write clean, efficient, and easily maintainable code, strictly adhering to established coding standards and best practices.
- Enhance overall code quality, performance, and security by participating in thorough code reviews.
- Design and optimize database schemas and queries to guarantee high performance and system reliability.
- Contribute to the testing infrastructure to increase code coverage for backend modules.
- Troubleshoot and resolve technical issues quickly and effectively across both development and production environments.
- Advance monitoring and alerting capabilities of backend modules to allow proactive improvements to availability and response times.
What You’ll Need
- 5+ years of hands-on experience in designing and developing applications using Java, Kotlin, and/or Scala. This includes exposure to a web framework like Spring.
- Developed and launched large scale consumer applications with the backend on cloud infrastructure (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure) using microservices architecture paradigms.
- Proven problem-solving abilities and a strong drive for independent learning and work.
- Expert knowledge in REST API design and development for mobile/web use.
- Expert knowledge in architecture & system design.
- Expert proficiency in Agile development process
Nice to Have
- Exposure to containerization technologies, such as Docker or Kubernetes.
- Familiarity with MariaDB.
- Familiarity with Kafka.
- Familiarity with production monitoring tools, including logging (e.g., SumoLogic, Kibana), basic APM (Application Performance Monitoring) tools, and observability frameworks such as OpenTelemetry.
Compensation
Additional Information
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.
Annual salary information is not provided for this position. Explore salary ranges for similar roles in our Salary Directory ›
Upload your resume now
- To unlock remote work opportunities and be discovered by global employers.
This job listing has been manually reviewed by the Jobicy Trust & Safety Team for compliance with our posting guidelines, including verification of the company's legitimacy, accuracy of job details, clarity of remote work policy, and absence of misleading or fraudulent content.
