A kiosk is an informal convenience store selling everyday household items. Known locally by their vernacular names e.g. Duka in Kenya, Spaza in South Africa, Kantemba in Zambia. kiosk-type retail outlets are the cornerstone of African retail, accounting for over 60% of all retail trade flows. Despite their importance, kiosk-type retail outlets face significant challenges, including high cost of stock and unreliable delivery.

Role Profile:

Kyosk is looking for a passionate Senior Software Engineer to help strengthen the development competency of a team of software engineers who are developing solutions on the leading edge of innovation in Africa. The successful candidate will play a leading role in the full SDLC of the team’s output.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll join our growing team of Product and Technology professionals who share a passion for leveraging technology to empower informal retailers across the African continent. You’ll work with teams from multiple countries across the organization to imagine and build innovative solutions for Kyosk’s customers and internal teams.

To be successful in this role you will need to be a strong technologist, innovator and an analytical problem solver. You will need to develop high quality, resilient, scalable software.

Key Responsibilities

• Play a leading role in the design and development of  software solutions
• Triage, investigate and resolve errors
• Adhere to, promote and help to improve Kyosk’s development processes
• Code reviews
• Mentor less experienced software engineers
• Experiment with new technologies/solutions and develop a PoC

Requirements

Minimum Technical Qualifications:

• 6 years of software development experience
• 2 years experience of the full SDLC (analysis, design, development, testing, integration, deployment, documentation, triage)
• Experience working with Agile methodologies
• Proficiency with administrative tools, e.g. Issue Tracking, Wikis, etc
• Advanced level user of dev tool chain (e.g. IDE, CI/CD, version control)
• Backend dev: Advanced knowledge of Java, SpringBoot, Hibernate.
• Working knowledge of containerization and orchestration
• Experience implementing the microservices design pattern
• Working knowledge of any cloud platform
• Experience designing and implementing a system from scratch
• Experience implementing complex automated tests (unit, integration, performance, etc)
• Demonstrates a clear understanding of system non-functional requirements (e.g. code readability, maintainability, scalability, extensibility, testability, etc), and can weigh the pros and cons of a solution w.r.t. non-functional requirements.

Minimum Behavioural and Soft Skills Requirements:

• Strong work ethic
• Focus on delivery
• Punctual
• Works independently
• Expectation management
• Passion for learning
• Ability to lead a discussion with clients in a professional manner
• Ability to give reasonably accurate time estimates
• Proactively accommodates value chain outside of sphere of responsibility
• Ability to communicate technical information clearly and concisely
• Can take the lead on small projects

Desired Technical Competencies

• 8+ years of software development experience
• 3+ year of experience of the full SDLC
• Working knowledge of Kafka
• Experience in e-commerce, payments, and/or distribution of FMCG products
• Experience using GCP
• Working knowledge of Docker containers and Kubernetes for orchestration
• Practitioner of the shift-left approach
• Experience introducing automated tests into a code base
• Experience architecting, designing and implementing a software system

Desired Behavioral Competencies

• Constantly seeks to improve tech and processes to streamline development
• Ability to work under pressure, with tight timelines and ambitious deadlines
• You have integrity: You do what you say you will do and make no excuses.
• Promote psychological safety in the team, as well as across the entire organisation