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Senior Backend Engineer (Switching Systems)

Lesaka Technologies Western Cape 4 months ago
Hybrid
Engineering

Role Overview

We are looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to design and build high-performance switching systems that route, process, and manage real-time transactions or communications at scale.

This role is deeply technical and backend-focused, requiring strong experience in low-latency systems, concurrency, and reliability engineering. You will play a key role in building the core systems that power critical flows in our platform.

Key Responsibilities

Core Systems & Switching Logic

Design and implement switching/routing engines for high-throughput, low-latency systems

Build systems that handle real-time decisioning, routing, and failover

Develop and maintain protocol-level integrations (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, gRPC, or domain-specific protocols)

Ensure correctness, ordering, and idempotency in transaction flows

Performance & Reliability

Optimize systems for latency, throughput, and fault tolerance

Design for high availability and graceful degradation

Implement robust retry, backoff, and circuit-breaking mechanisms

Debug complex production issues in distributed systems

Backend Engineering

Build and maintain backend services and APIs

Work with data stores (relational and/or NoSQL) to support high-scale workloads

Contribute to system design, code reviews, and engineering standards

Infrastructure & Observability

Collaborate on deployment architecture (cloud or hybrid environments)

Implement monitoring, logging, and tracing for critical paths

Improve system visibility and operational readiness

Experience

5 - 8+ years of backend software engineering experience

Proven experience building high-throughput, low-latency systems

Experience working on switching, routing, or real-time processing systems (telecom, payments, networking, or similar domains)

Key Competencies

Technical Skills

Strong proficiency in one or more backend languages (e.g., Go, Java, C++, Rust, or similar

Deep understanding of concurrency, multithreading, and asynchronous systems

Experience with network protocols and system-level behavior

Solid understanding of distributed systems fundamentals

Experience with databases under high load

Systems Thinking

Ability to reason about failure modes, edge cases, and system limits

Strong debugging and performance tuning skills

Focus on building resilient, production-grade systems

Nice to Have

Experience with telecom switching (e.g., SS7, SIP) or payment switching (e.g., ISO 8583)

Experience with event-driven architectures or streaming systems (e.g., Kafka)

Familiarity with kernel-level or systems programming concepts

Experience in regulated or mission-critical environments