Senior Software Engineer: Full-Stack job at Cellulant

About Cellulant:

Cellulant is Africa’s leading payments company, providing seamless, secure and innovative solutions that empower businesses, banks, and global brands to thrive in a fast-changing global economy.

With a presence in over 24 countries and 200+ payment methods, including cards, bank transfers, and mobile money, our single API payment platform, Tingg, simplifies collections, disbursements, and reconciliations. It processes over 4.5 million transactions daily for market leaders across sectors such as Airlines, Telecoms, E-commerce, Ride-Hailing, Retail, and Remittances. By simplifying how people pay and get paid, we drive trust, commerce and scale – and connect companies to their ambitions.

Our Story:

Across Africa, payments are more than transactions. They are gateways to prosperity, connecting people, businesses and communities to opportunities and growth.

From enabling a logistics company in Lusaka to pay suppliers across borders, to enabling a hospitality brand in Lagos to scale effortlessly, to supporting an airline in Nairobi to reconcile payments from multiple platforms, Cellulant is the bridge that makes it all possible.

Through trusted technology and customer-centric innovation, we build connections that inspire progress, strengthen economies and transform payments into a tool for progress.

Since our founding in 2003, we've continuously adapted and grown, leveraging our experiences to simplify payments for businesses. We are driven by an unshakable belief that seamless people-centred payments are the key to unlocking prosperity.

Today, Cellulant powers online and offline payment processing, allowing businesses to collect payments, send payouts, and accelerate business growth.

Our Mission:

To deliver seamless, secure and innovative payment solutions for businesses.

Our Vision:

To create a connected world where businesses move money as easily as they share ideas.

Role Overview:

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer: Full-stack with a strong command of modern front-end and back-end technologies, excellent code review practices, and a passion for collaboration and mentorship. In this role, you will contribute to the delivery of high-quality user interfaces with a scalable backend, provide technical leadership, and help elevate the performance of the engineering team through deep technical contributions and peer support.

What You'll do:

Code Quality & Technical Excellence

• Design and implement scalable, user-friendly full-stack applications.
• Develop efficient, lock-free SQL queries for optimal data storage, retrieval, and updates.
• Optimize application performance to achieve fast loading times.
• Build secure and scalable front-end and back-end systems capable of handling high traffic with minimal disruption.
• Create well-documented APIs for seamless third-party integration.
• Proficiency in analyzing and optimizing applications for efficient memory usage and high performance, with a solid grasp of time and space complexity.
• Can establish code quality standards;
• Can be able to create frameworks for better code organization.
• creates standards for code reviews, implements automated quality gates;
• Drives best practices adoption

Collaboration & Cross-Functional Work

• Collaborate with:
• Product designers to translate Figma designs into performant, accessible UI components
• Backend engineers to define APIs and ensure seamless user journeys
• Actively participate in sprint ceremonies, including:
• Daily stand-ups
• Sprint planning and backlog refinement
• Retrospectives — contributing to continuous team improvement
• Lead task refinements where you are the designated Tech Owner

Production & Operational Readiness

• Own end-to-end debugging of production issues using tools such as:
• Datadog for tracing HTTP requests
• Logging and monitoring systems to identify root causes
• Understand and leverage the team's CI/CD pipelines for efficient delivery
• Identify and share relevant documentation with new or existing team members
• Possesses a foundational understanding of at least one major cloud platform, such as AWS.
• Proficiency in using the GIT version control system.

Autonomy & Ownership

• Work independently with little to no supervision
• Demonstrate proactive behavior — e.g., posting status updates, reviewing PRs, and following team processes without being prompted
• Exhibit strong verbal and especially written communication skills for effective documentation and collaboration.
• Contributes to architectural discussions by providing a benefit analysis and outlining the pros and cons of proposed approaches.
• Proactively seeks out and researches new and emerging technologies.

What we are looking for:

Technical Skills

Required Technical Skills:

Front-End Expertise:

• Advanced proficiency with the front-end technology stack, including React, TypeScript, JavaScript, and CSS-in-JS.
• Strong grasp of modern state management, component architecture, and front-end testing methodologies.
• Proven experience working with design systems and developing reusable UI components.
• Proficiency in backend integration and consuming REST APIs.

Back-End Expertise:

• Advanced proficiency in the backend technology stack: Java and Springboot.
• Solid understanding of at least one SQL language (e.g., MySQL, PSQL, or MSSQL).

General Development:

• Familiarity with Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines and relevant tooling.
• Experience

5+ years of professional experience in front-end and backend development

Proven track record of delivering high-quality front-end applications

Experience mentoring engineers and leading technical discussions

Soft Skills

• Takes full ownership of responsibilities and outcomes.
• Excellent communication (written and verbal), collaboration, and documentation abilities.
• Highly self-managed, demonstrating the ability to deliver results with minimal supervision.
• Innovative and customer-centric, always considering the end-user's perspective.

Why Work for Us?

At Cellulant, we are more than a payments company: we are bridge-builders. We believe that by simplifying the way people pay and get paid, we are connecting companies to their ambitions, people to opportunities, and Africa to the global economy. Our work goes beyond payments—it’s about what people, businesses, and communities can do when the movement of money becomes more dependable, seamless, and secure.

Some exciting things about us...

• We have an extensive footprint: We have an office presence in 10 countries, and our products serve 24 countries across Africa, with a global workforce of about 300 employees.
• We believe innovation is at the heart of Fintech: Thousands of market leaders and top enterprises trust our technology to power their payments. Our customers are in various sectors, including financial services, travel and hospitality, telecom, e-commerce, remittance companies, SaaS, and the gig economy.
• We support a diverse and inclusive workforce: We focus on the growth and development of our employees through well-developed, individualised career paths, ensuring you reach your full potential in a supportive and delivery-oriented environment.
• We put our employees first: At Cellulant, your contribution is rewarded competitively. We use clear career levels and role titles, and benchmark our base pay against data and a well-established internal process. Your actual salary will reflect your experience, skills, impact and the scope of the role, as well as our business needs and prevailing market conditions. We also offer generous personal time off, and medical and life insurance benefits (markets permitting).
• We seek collaborative builders: At Cellulant, we believe that great ideas happen when we come together. Therefore, we nurture a collaborative work environment that challenges, engages, and empowers each person to contribute to the growth and success of the business.
• We solve Africa's digital economy: We’re solving payment challenges on the continent to create opportunities and accelerate economic growth for all of Africa.

• Design and implement scalable, user-friendly full-stack applications.
• Develop efficient, lock-free SQL queries for optimal data storage, retrieval, and updates.
• Optimize application performance to achieve fast loading times.
• Build secure and scalable front-end and back-end systems capable of handling high traffic with minimal disruption.
• Create well-documented APIs for seamless third-party integration.
• Proficiency in analyzing and optimizing applications for efficient memory usage and high performance, with a solid grasp of time and space complexity.
• Can establish code quality standards;
• Can be able to create frameworks for better code organization.
• creates standards for code reviews, implements automated quality gates;
• Drives best practices adoption
• Collaborate with Product designers to translate Figma designs into performant, accessible UI components
• Collaborate with Backend engineers to define APIs and ensure seamless user journeys
• Actively participate in sprint ceremonies, including: Daily stand-ups, Sprint planning and backlog refinement, Retrospectives — contributing to continuous team improvement
• Lead task refinements where you are the designated Tech Owner
• Own end-to-end debugging of production issues using tools such as Datadog for tracing HTTP requests, Logging and monitoring systems to identify root causes
• Understand and leverage the team's CI/CD pipelines for efficient delivery
• Identify and share relevant documentation with new or existing team members
• Possesses a foundational understanding of at least one major cloud platform, such as AWS.
• Proficiency in using the GIT version control system.
• Work independently with little to no supervision
• Demonstrate proactive behavior — e.g., posting status updates, reviewing PRs, and following team processes without being prompted
• Exhibit strong verbal and especially written communication skills for effective documentation and collaboration.
• Contributes to architectural discussions by providing a benefit analysis and outlining the pros and cons of proposed approaches.
• Proactively seeks out and researches new and emerging technologies.

• React
• TypeScript
• JavaScript
• CSS-in-JS
• State management
• Component architecture
• Front-end testing methodologies
• Design systems
• Reusable UI components
• Backend integration
• REST APIs
• Java
• Springboot
• SQL
• CI/CD pipelines
• GIT version control system
• Datadog

• Advanced proficiency with the front-end technology stack, including React, TypeScript, JavaScript, and CSS-in-JS.
• Strong grasp of modern state management, component architecture, and front-end testing methodologies.
• Proven experience working with design systems and developing reusable UI components.
• Proficiency in backend integration and consuming REST APIs.
• Advanced proficiency in the backend technology stack: Java and Springboot.
• Solid understanding of at least one SQL language (e.g., MySQL, PSQL, or MSSQL).
• Familiarity with Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines and relevant tooling.
• Foundational understanding of at least one major cloud platform, such as AWS.
• Proficiency in using the GIT version control system.
• Excellent communication (written and verbal), collaboration, and documentation abilities.