Tech Lead - Onboarding Engineering

Watu is a fintech company operating across Africa and Latin America, providing device financing and financial services to customers historically excluded from the formal financial system. We finance motorcycles, smartphones and other productive assets through a technology-first, data-driven approach - enabling customers to own income-generating assets and build credit histories.

Our platform supports millions of customer journeys across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and beyond, with continued expansion into LATAM.

Tech Lead is one of the most important individual roles in the engineering organisation. You are the technical authority for your squad - you own the architecture, set the quality bar, govern external partners when applicable, and are the primary escalation point for every engineering decision in your domain.

This role carries light people management alongside deep technical ownership. You will have 3-5 direct reports (Backend Engineers, Frontend/Mobile Engineer, QA Engineer). You are responsible for their day-to-day unblocking, their technical growth, and honest feedback on their work. Formal performance reviews and hiring decisions sit with the Head of Engineering - but in practice, your view of each engineer in your squad is the most important input into those decisions. Do not let the word "light" mislead you: if an engineer in your squad is struggling, that is your problem to solve.

You are a peer of the Product Owner, not a subordinate. Product owns What. You own How and When. Sprint commitments are signed off by both of you together. If the roadmap is technically unrealistic, your job is to say so early and clearly.

Quick facts for this squad

• Partner governance: Hybrid development in-house (phone) / outsourced (vehicle) - Tech Lead governs architecture, quality, and releases.
• Primary tech focus: Java backend · Angular/React.js frontend · KYC/anti-fraud APIs · B2B Licensing Portal · Event-driven onboarding flows

Domain responsibilities

• Own the architecture of the vehicle and phone onboarding flows - from customer-facing entry points to KYC resolution and disbursement of the loan, including back-office flows and interactions
• Govern Partner: review all code changes, own the architecture decisions, and hold the final sign-off on all releases. Partner executes; you govern.
• Own the KYC and anti-fraud engine - design and maintain the integration layer with third-party identity verification and fraud detection providers with no vendor lock-in.
• Own the B2B Licensing Portal & APIs - the technical interface through which B2B partners manage licenses. API design, security, and versioning are your responsibility.
• Manage market rollout tooling - technical readiness for new market launches is a squad deliverable.

Domain-specific requirements (in addition to base JD)

• Experience building KYC, identity verification, or anti-fraud systems in a regulated financial services context.
• Experience with Java and FE frameworks (Angular, React.js)
• Familiarity with B2B API design patterns and partner integration governance.
• Understanding of mobile-first onboarding UX constraints and the backend systems that support them.
• Experience operating in or building for African markets - connectivity constraints, local identity document formats, regulatory variance.

Architecture & technical direction

• Own the technical architecture for your squad's domain - system design, API contracts, data models, integration patterns, and the Architectural Decision Records that document why.
• Enforce the Watu engineering standards within your squad: GitHub for all code, mandatory PR review, coverage gates, OpenAPI documentation, runbooks, and secrets management.
• Be the squad's representative to the Platform General Architecture - escalate cross-squad concerns, contribute to shared standards, and ensure your squad's patterns align with the broader platform direction.

Delivery & quality

• Review and approve all pull requests for your squad. Not as a bottleneck, but as the quality gate. Your name is on everything that ships.
• Define and maintain the squad's Definition of Done. Work with the embedded QA engineer to ensure quality is built in, not bolted on.
• Own the squad's release process. Nothing ships without your sign-off - including work from external partners where applicable.
• Drive sprint planning with the Product Owner - translate user stories into technical tasks, surface dependencies, flag risks early.

Partner & vendor governance

• Where your squad governs an external partner, you are the technical point of accountability. The partner executes; you govern. Architecture decisions, code quality, and release timing are owned internally.
• Review partner code via PR access. Nothing a partner ships enters production without your review.

People management (light but real)

• You have 4-6 direct reports: typically 1–2 Backend Engineers, 1–2 Frontend/Mobile Engineers, and 1-2 QA Engineers. They report to you for day-to-day work; the QA Chapter Lead reports to the Head of Engineering for standards but to you operationally.
• Unblock engineers actively - pair on hard problems, review designs before they build, and create an environment where asking for help is normal and fast.
• Give direct, timely feedback to your direct reports. Engineer growth happens through clear, specific feedback delivered close to the moment - not through annual cycles. You are the primary person responsible for the development of the engineers in your squad.
• Your input into performance reviews and hiring decisions carries significant weight - the Head of Engineering will lean heavily on your assessment of each engineer in your squad.
• Model AI-native engineering. Every engineer in your squad is expected to use AI/LLM tools actively. You set the tone for what that looks like in practice.

Essential

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 2 years where you were the de facto technical authority for a significant product area or team.
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals: distributed systems, event-driven architecture, API design, database design, and testing strategy.
• Proven ability to review and reason about code across the full stack of your domain - you can give a meaningful review on any PR your squad raises.
• Experience in an Agile/Scrum or Kanban environment where you drove sprint ceremonies, backlog refinement, and delivery alongside a Product Owner.
• Clear, direct communicator - with engineers, with Product, and upward to the Head of Engineering.

Strongly preferred

• Experience in fintech, payments, or digital financial services in Africa or LATAM.
• Experience governing external engineering partners or SaaS vendor integrations.
• Hands-on experience with Java backend development (our primary backend language).
• Familiarity with event-driven architecture, Kafka or equivalent message brokers.

Engineering standards you are expected to uphold

• All code in GitHub - mandatory peer review, unified branching strategy, green CI before merge.
• APIs documented with OpenAPI/Swagger; Architecture Decision Records for significant decisions.
• No secrets in code - AWS Secrets Manager or Vault. OWASP Top 10 awareness is a baseline expectation.
• AI/LLM tooling used actively in your daily workflow - code generation, test writing, documentation, debugging.

This role is NOT right for you if

• You want to be shielded from difficult technical decisions by a more senior architect above you. There isn't one at this level.
• You want to move away from technical work. You will have several direct reports and real people management responsibilities - but you will also be the most technical person in the squad. If the goal is to stop writing code and reviewing architecture, this is the wrong step.
• You prefer to work independently and find code review and pair programming friction rather than value.

Send your CV and a brief note on why this role to the Watu talent team. We run a structured process: an initial conversation with the relevant Head of Engineering, a technical interview, and a final conversation with the wider leadership team. We move quickly for the right candidate.

We are an equal opportunity employer and actively work to build a team that reflects the diversity of the markets we serve.

All personal information provided will be processed in accordance with applicable data protection laws and regulations and used solely for recruitment and selection purposes.

Watu · Technology Organisation · Tech Lead ·