Senior Software Engineer

Branch Overview

Branch delivers world-class financial services to the mobile generation. With offices in the United States, Nigeria, Kenya, and India, Branch is a for-profit socially conscious company that uses the power of data science to reduce the cost of delivering financial services in emerging markets. We believe that everyone everywhere deserves fair financial access. The rapid spread of smartphones presents an opportunity for the world’s emerging middle class to access banking options and achieve financial flexibility. 

Branch’s mission-driven team is led by the founder and former CEO of Kiva.org. The company presents a rich opportunity for our team members to drive meaningful growth in rapidly evolving and changing markets. In 2019, Branch announced its Series C and has garnered more than $100M in funding with investments from leading Silicon Valley firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Trinity Capital, Foundation Capital, Visa, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

We value diversity and are committed to providing an inclusive working environment where human beings of all backgrounds can thrive. 

Job Overview

We are seeking a talented Backend Platform Engineer to build and enhance the core platform that powers our backend services. You will focus on designing scalable architectures, optimizing backend performance, and improving developer productivity. This role involves working closely with product engineers, DevOps, and data teams to build high-performance, fault-tolerant systems that scale seamlessly. You will work closely with our engineering team based in India, United States, Nigeria, and Kenya, collaborating across time zones to develop a world-class Fin-Tech platform.

As a company, we are passionate about our customers, fearless in the face of barriers, and driven by data. As an engineering team, we value bottom-up innovation and decentralized decision-making — we believe the best ideas can come from anyone in the company. We work hard to create an environment where everyone feels empowered to propose solutions, challenge assumptions, and drive meaningful impact. We are looking for individuals who thrive in a fast-moving, innovative, and customer-focused setting and want to contribute to building scalable, reliable, and efficient backend systems.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and optimize scalable backend systems and APIs that support high-traffic workloads.
• Build and maintain developer platforms, frameworks, and tooling to enhance productivity and system efficiency.
• Ensure high availability, fault tolerance, and observability in distributed systems by implementing best practices.
• Collaborate with engineers across teams to create efficient service architectures and improve system reliability.
• Work on database scalability and optimization, ensuring data consistency and performance for high-volume applications.
• Implement asynchronous processing, caching strategies, and event-driven architectures to improve system efficiency.
• Define and enforce coding standards, CI/CD pipelines, and automation to improve software quality and delivery speed.
• Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks, optimizing query execution, load balancing, and resource utilization.
• Document technical architectures, best practices, and engineering processes to drive knowledge-sharing within the team.
• Stay up to date with emerging technologies in backend engineering, distributed systems, and cloud infrastructure to enhance platform capabilities.

Qualifications

• You have strong experience (3+ years) of building backend software for web-based or mobile products.
• You have strong knowledge of software development fundamentals, including relevant background in computer science fundamentals, distributed systems, data storage, and agile development methodologies.
• You are pragmatic and combine a strong understanding of technology and product needs to arrive at the best solution for a given problem.
• You are highly entrepreneurial and thrive in taking ownership of your own impact. You take the initiative to solve problems before they arise.
• You are an excellent collaborator & communicator. You know that startups are a team sport. You listen to others, aren’t afraid to speak your mind and always try to ask the right questions. 
• You are excited by the prospect of working in a distributed team and company, working with teammates from all over the world.

Benefits of Joining

• Be part of a mission-driven, fast-paced, and entrepreneurial environment that fosters innovation and impact.
• Receive a competitive salary and equity package, reflecting your value and contributions.
• Thrive in a collaborative and flat company culture that encourages open communication and idea-sharing.
• Enjoy the flexibility of a remote-first work setup, with opportunities for occasional in-person collaboration.
• Benefit from fully-paid Health Insurance to support your well-being.
• Work-life balance is not a myth. Take advantage of paid time off, including personal leave, bereavement leave, and sick leave.
• Access fully paid parental leave, with 6 months of maternity leave and 3 months of paternity leave.
• Leverage annual professional development budget to upskill and advance your career.
• Participate in discretionary trips to our offices around the globe, supported by global travel medical insurance.
• Enjoy team meals and social events, both virtual and in-person, to connect and bond with colleagues.

Job responsibility The Lead Developer contributes, to create a customer’s solution, in the building phase of the software development lifecycle. The Software Engineer is responsible for performing the detailed design of application and technical architecture components and classes in accordance to the specification provided by the Solution Architect, for coding of SW components, and for the early testing phases (component testing), and system testing support

Hands on experience in Java, Python, scripting
- Design, implement, deploy and support web-based applications and web services using server technologies stacks that include Java, MySQL
- Experience in Java/J2EE using web frameworks Play or Spring boot, REST API Development and ORM (JPA, Hibernate eBean etc.)
- In depth knowledge of Design patterns and Data structures
- Databases - MySQL, Oracle, SQL
- Solid understanding of concepts like Web Services, SOA, REST APIs, Message Queue, Caching, Distributed/Scalable Architecture
- Secure application development best practices, such as OWASP
- Document and maintain all design documents and involve in review process.
- Experienced problem solving and debugging skills.
- Good verbal and written communication and interpersonal skills
- Experience in Agile methodology is added advantage
- Knowledge of Cloud Knowledge /Azure
- Must know about Unix knowledge
- experience in Elastic search

The Risk team is responsible for overall risk framework and strategy for the organization. The team develops various risk models, arrives at various sector reports from a risk perspective and provides in depth analysis and recommendation around risk profiles of various clients.

In this role, the person is responsible for playing a leadership role in the Risk function to identify, assess, monitor and make timely and measured judgments on all current and potential future risks faced, in order to protect the organization’s interest, assets and reputation of the group along with growing shareholder value and profitability.

Responsibilities

• Manage risk for the retail and wholesale portfolio. Should have managed organization level Risk Policies, Credit Underwriting and Collection functions.
• Manage risk framework for the organization - including updating, establishing new risk management mechanisms, to identify, assess, monitor, measure and control a broad spectrum of risks. Ensure all policies and frameworks are kept updated and deployed to the optimum level.
• Develop continuous monitoring and improvement of the quality of the organization's credit and lending portfolio through credit policy direction and implementation.
• Possess a complete understanding the business. Evaluate, improve, and monitor the business, including assisting in reporting to the Board and Board Committees and providing leadership in the effectiveness of credit risk management controls, systems, and processes across the organization.
• Lead and mentor a team of analysts.

• Possess 7+ years of relevant experience in financial services industry in a risk role.
• Exposure to both wholesale and retail risk in a banking environment will be preferred. Some experience in a business / sales role within the banking / NBFC space will be an added advantage.
• Should have held a position of authority in terms of allocation and appropriating limits.
• Sector understanding in financial institution space and good knowledge of interpreting financial trends.
• High proficiency in Python and SQL/NoSQL.
• Experience with big data and cloud computing e.g., PySpark, data lake is a plus.
• Outstanding written, verbal and interpersonal communication skills.
• Ability to speak at various levels of an organization (CXOs to analysts).
• Have demonstrated resilience – stayed with companies and taking businesses to scale, have preferably not ‘hopped jobs. Strong organizational skills and excellent follow-through.
• Present / articulate / position an idea compellingly and ability to work in a fast-paced dynamic environment.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.
• Takes personal ownership; Self-starter; Ability to drive projects with minimal guidance and focus on high impact work.
• Learns continuously; Seeks out knowledge, ideas and feedback.

• System engineering and implementation in Golang.
• Working on performance issues using creative experiments and internally developed product features.
• Research, propose, and integrate relevant open-source projects based on product objectives.
• Write organized, efficient, and well documented Python/Golang code as an example for junior engineers.
• Participation in all levels of product definition, design, implementation, testing, and deployment.
• Must include the ability to discuss abstract system architectures from ideas through implementation and
• creatively apply domain experience to solve technical challenges.
• Mentoring software engineers, fostering an environment of trust and accountability.

• Strong Golang skills to develop framework(s).
• Hands-on to design & develop re-usable framework components.
• Hands-On experience on developing framework, designing re-usable framework components.
• Experience in engineering practices such as code refactoring, design patterns, design driven development,
• Continuous Integration, building highly scalable applications, application security and functional programming.

• Knowledge of Cloud native would be an advantage.
• Understanding of Kubernetes from Architecture side and also understand the Standard API.
• Code contributed to CNCF or similar community will be plus.
• Performance benchmarking of K8’s or any cloud will be added advantage.

• Deep understanding of technology and passionate about what you do.
• Background in designing high performant scalable software systems with strong focus to optimize hardware cost.
• Solid collaborative and interpersonal skills, specifically a proven ability to effectively guide and influence within a dynamic environment.
• Strong commitment to get the most performance out of a system being worked on.
• Prior development of a large software project using service-oriented architecture operating with real time constraints.

• You will get a chance to work on cloud-native and hyper-scale products
• You will be working with industry leaders in cloud.
• You can expect a steep learning curve.
• You will get the experience of solving real time problems, eventually you become a problem solver.

• Competitive Salary
• Health Insurance
• Open Learning - 100% Reimbursement for online technical courses.
• Fast Growth - opportunities to grow quickly and surely
• Creative Freedom + Flat hierarchy
• Sponsorship to all those employees who represent company in events and meet ups.
• Flexible working hours
• 5 days week
• Hybrid Working model (Office and WFH)

• Initial Resume screening call with our Recruiting team
• Next, candidates will be invited to solve coding exercises.
• Next, candidates will be invited for first technical interview
• Next, candidates will be invited for final technical interview
• Finally, candidates will be invited for Culture Plus interview with HR
• Candidates may be asked to interview with the Leadership team
• Successful candidates will subsequently be made an offer via email
• As always, the interviews and screening call will be conducted via a mix of telephonic and video call.

• Back-end software development
• Software engineering and designing data models and write effective APIs
• Working together with engineers and product teams
• Understanding business use cases and requirements for different internal teams
• Maintenance of existing projects and New feature development
• Consume and integrate classifier/ ML snippets from Data science team

What we are looking for:

• 2+ years of industry experience with the Python and Django framework.
• Degree in Computer Science or related field
• Good analytical skills with strong fundamentals of data structures and algorithms
• Experience building backend services with hands-on experience through all stages of Agile software development life cycle. 
• Ability to write optimized codes,debug programs, and integrate applications with third party tools by developing various APIs
• Experience with Databases.
• Experience with writing REST-APIs.
• Prototyping initial collection and leveraging existing tools and/or creating new tools
• Experience working different types of datasets (e.g. unstructured, semi-structured, with missing information)
• Ability to think critically and creatively in a dynamic environment, while picking up new tools and domain knowledge along the way
• A positive attitude, and a growth mindset

Bonus:

• Experience with relevant Python libraries such as Requests, sklearn, Selenium
• Hands on experience in Machine learning implementations
• Experience with Cloud infrastructure (e.g. AWS) and relevant microservices
• Good Humor

• Deliver features in an end-to-end manner: technical design, development, testing, deployment, and maintenance.
• Provide technical leadership and own specific areas of the platform.
• Work closely with Product Managers to translate product requirements to engineering specifications.
• Lead code review efforts and quality efforts in your area of ownership.
• Participate in product discussions, taking ownership and initiative.
• Work independently in a fast-paced environment.
• Mentored and guide junior engineers.

Must Haves:

• Minimum 2 years of working experience in Ruby on Rails/ Python/ Node.JS.
• Strong problem-solving skills, data structures, and algorithms.
• Excellent experience on databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.
• Familiarity with tools for code reviews, version control (GIT).
• A knack for writing clean, readable Ruby/ Python/Node.JS code.
• Experience in application server hosting and monitoring.
• Understanding of fundamental design principles behind a scalable application.

Nice to Have:

• Hands-on with search platforms (Solr, Elasticsearch, etc).
• Prior experience with microservices-based architecture/SOA/distributed systems.
• Able to implement automated testing platforms and unit tests.
• Experience with common AWS service EC2, RDS, S3, SES, etc.

Key Competencies:

• Building Effective Team
• Solving Problems Creatively
• Learning Agility
• Drive For Result

• As a polyglot developer Ideally, you should have:
• 1.5+ years of development experience using any of technology java, scala, python or any similar exciting technologies.
• Hands-on experience in coding, and implementation of complex, custom-built applications Working knowledge of build tool like maven/sbt and code versioning systems like git/bitbucket/cvs/svn
• Familiarity with few databases, like MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, NoSQL etc Great OO skills, including strong design patterns knowledge
• Good communication and ability to work in a consulting environment is essential

• Think through hard problems in a consultancy environment, and work with amazing people to make the solutions a reality Work in a dynamic, collaborative, non-hierarchical environment where your talent is valued over your job title or years of experience
• Build custom software using the latest technologies and tools Craft your own career path

• Providing solution to real problems in Bigdata world.
• RnD on using the latest tools,techniques and cloud services.
• Automating the manual-timetaking tasks.
• Hands-on coding, usually in a pair programming environment.
• Working in highly collaborative teams and building quality code
• Working in lots of different domains and client environments
• Understanding the business domain deeply

JOB SUMMARY

     THE ROLE IN SUMMARY

Omnicom Media Group (OMG) has an immediate opening for a highly motivated and talented backend web application developer, specializing in AWS cloud technologies. In this position you will be joining an in-house development team whose primary responsibility is developing new features and functionality for multiple existing web applications and day to day troubleshooting and issue resolution. The ideal candidate will possess excellent critical thinking and troubleshooting skills and have proven experience using popular AWS services commonly used to build serverless web application architectures. Candidates are expected to have strong knowledge of AWS API Gateway, Lambda, DynamoDB and Python programming. Familiarity with Cloud infrastructure as code frameworks, such as Serverless Framework, Terraform or CloudFormation, etc. is also required. Excellent English communication skills are a must as you will be a part of a team working alongside our primary development team in addition to several business analysis and project managers. 5+ years of prior backend and Cloud web application and software development experience required.

KEY WORKING PRINCIPLES

• Passionate about modern web application architecture and programming. Hands on backend developer.
• Prior experience with modern RESTful API design and implementation. Microservices and single page web applications.
• Strong AWS knowledge, specifically serverless technologies (S3, API Gateway, Lambda, IAM, DynamoDB) as they relate to web application development.
• Excellent knowledge of web application security fundamentals (identity management, authentication, authorization, SSO).
• Designed several application databases in SQL and at least one non-relational database system, preferably
• Familiarity with DevOps practices including continuous integration and deployment, infrastructure as code in preferably Serverless Framework.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• 5+ years professional software development experience.
• Bachler’s degree in computer science or related field.

MUST HAVE SKILLS

• Backend Web Application Development
• Python
• AWS Services Including, CloudFront, S3, API Gateway, Lambda, Step Functions, SES, DynamoDB, Serverless Framework
• AWS Identity and Access Management principles (IAM)
• SQL (MS SQL Server, PostgreSQL, AWS Aurora or comparable)
• GIT, JIRA, Agile / Scrum

NICE TO HAVE SKILLS

• AWS Cognito