Senior Backend Engineer | Sona | Remote, Nigeria

About the Role

Sona is seeking an experienced and highly capable Senior Backend Engineer to lead the design, development, and evolution of its backend infrastructure. This is a high-impact role where you will define the technical foundation of a growing platform, transforming an early prototype into a secure, scalable, and production-ready system capable of supporting real users, financial transactions, and multiple future products.

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you will take ownership beyond coding. You will be responsible for architectural decisions, operational reliability, security, compliance infrastructure, deployment processes, and long-term scalability. This position is ideal for an engineer who enjoys solving complex problems, building systems from the ground up, and making critical technical decisions that directly influence business success.

Working closely with company leadership, you will help shape the future of the platform by building resilient systems for authentication, payments, compliance, observability, and data management. If you thrive in fast-paced startup environments and enjoy combining technical excellence with product ownership, this role offers an exciting opportunity to make a lasting impact.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and evolve a production-grade backend architecture from an early-stage prototype.
• Define service boundaries, APIs, data models, and long-term system architecture.
• Build and maintain secure payment processing systems using Stripe or similar payment providers.
• Implement transaction handling mechanisms including reconciliation, retries, refunds, and dispute management.
• Design authentication and authorization systems including JWTs, OAuth, sessions, and account recovery workflows.
• Develop fraud prevention, rate limiting, anomaly detection, and abuse prevention mechanisms.
• Integrate KYC, KYB, identity verification, sanctions screening, and compliance workflows.
• Own PostgreSQL database design, performance optimization, schema migrations, and scalability planning.
• Implement observability solutions including structured logging, monitoring, tracing, and alerting.
• Establish testing frameworks and quality standards for critical business functions.
• Manage deployment pipelines, CI/CD processes, infrastructure automation, and release management.
• Lead technical decision-making, code reviews, architecture discussions, and engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with founders, external vendors, compliance partners, and future engineering team members.

Candidate Requirements

Required

• Significant experience designing, building, and operating production backend systems.
• Strong expertise in backend software development and system architecture.
• Hands-on experience implementing payment systems in production environments.
• Deep understanding of payment processing, transaction reconciliation, refunds, disputes, and financial workflows.
• Advanced knowledge of PostgreSQL or equivalent relational database systems.
• Experience designing scalable schemas and optimizing database performance.
• Strong understanding of authentication, authorization, security principles, and account protection.
• Experience with observability tools, monitoring systems, logging frameworks, and production debugging.
• Familiarity with compliance-driven systems including KYC, AML, fraud prevention, or related domains.
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and deployment processes.
• Strong problem-solving abilities and technical decision-making skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work independently and take ownership of complex technical initiatives.

Preferred

• Experience building fintech products or financial infrastructure platforms.
• Experience developing marketplaces or multi-sided platforms.
• Familiarity with compliance frameworks such as AML, BSA, SOC 2, or related standards.
• Experience with multi-tenant architectures and distributed systems.
• Knowledge of cloud platforms, containerization, and infrastructure automation.
• Experience migrating systems between databases or architectural patterns.
• Background working in startup or high-growth technology environments.

Job Details

Job Title: Senior Backend Engineer
Company: Sona
Location: Nigeria
Work Arrangement: Remote
Job Type: Full-Time
Salary: ₦400,000 – ₦500,000 per month
Industry: Financial Technology (FinTech)

Benefits

• Competitive monthly salary package.
• Opportunity to shape the architecture of a growing fintech platform.
• High level of ownership and technical autonomy.
• Direct collaboration with founders and key stakeholders.
• Exposure to cutting-edge financial technology systems.
• Opportunity to work on payments, identity, compliance, and infrastructure at scale.
• Professional growth through challenging technical projects.
• Flexible and results-oriented work environment.
• Opportunity to help build and mentor future engineering teams.
• Significant impact on product direction and technical strategy.

Why Join Sona?

Sona is building the infrastructure required to support modern financial products and services. The company is focused on creating reliable, scalable, and secure systems that handle critical functions such as payments, identity management, compliance, and user trust.

Joining Sona means becoming one of the foundational engineering leaders responsible for defining the platform's future. This is not a role limited to implementing requirements—it's an opportunity to influence architecture, establish engineering standards, and solve meaningful technical challenges with real-world impact.

For engineers who enjoy ownership, systems thinking, and building products that matter, this position offers an exciting chance to help create a platform from the ground up while working alongside ambitious founders and stakeholders.

Application Process

Interested candidates should submit an up-to-date CV highlighting relevant backend engineering, fintech, payments, infrastructure, or platform development experience.

Applicants are encouraged to showcase examples of production systems they have designed, maintained, scaled, or improved, particularly in high-availability or regulated environments.

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for technical and culture-fit interviews.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is this a remote position?
Yes. The role is based in Nigeria and offers remote working opportunities.

What is the salary range?
The salary for this position ranges from ₦400,000 to ₦500,000 per month.

What technologies will I work with?
You will work with backend systems, PostgreSQL databases, payment integrations such as Stripe, authentication systems, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring tools, and cloud-based infrastructure.

Do I need fintech experience?
Fintech experience is preferred but not mandatory. However, candidates should have strong experience working with production systems, payments, security, or regulated environments.

Will I be involved in architectural decisions?
Yes. This role includes ownership of system architecture, scaling strategies, service design, infrastructure decisions, and long-term technical direction.

What level of experience is required?
Candidates should have significant experience operating and scaling production backend systems and demonstrate strong technical judgment, system design expertise, and ownership mentality.

Will I work directly with company leadership?
Yes. The role involves close collaboration with founders, business stakeholders, external partners, and future engineering team members.

What makes this role unique?
This position combines backend engineering, system architecture, payments infrastructure, compliance systems, operational reliability, and technical leadership, providing an opportunity to influence both the product and the company's technical future.