Mobile API Engineer - Tech Lead - Koalafi
Arlington, VA
About the Job
At Koalafi, we believe in a world where no one has to put an important purchase on hold. That's why we're making it easier for more people to pay for big purchases over time.
Over 17,000 retailers rely on us to match their customers to a payment plan clearly and quickly, all while reflecting well on their brand. Their 2M+ customers love us because we provide a flexible way for them to make payments, and give them an opportunity to improve their credit. Our 200+ Koalafi teammates enjoy inspiring and challenging work that accelerates their careers.
Interested in learning more about how we're transforming the financing experience and joining our team?
Are you ready to build something impactful? We're seeking a talented Golang API Engineer to join our dynamic mobile team and play a pivotal role in creating a brand-new mobile applications for our industry-leading point of sale financing products and services.
In this role, you'll have the opportunity to work on cutting-edge mobile technologies, transform the way consumers experience seamless financing solutions, and develop a highly responsive, intuitive, and engaging user experience.
As the Tech Lead of our mobile team, you'll collaborate with designers, product managers, and other engineers to architect and implement features that deliver real value to our customers. You'll work in an agile environment, driving innovation, solving complex problems, and influencing the direction of our mobile platform.If you are passionate about building mobile-first, user-centric applications and thrive in a fast-paced, forward-thinking environment, this is the perfect opportunity for you!
Key Responsibilities:
- Architect and Develop APIs: Design, develop, and maintain RESTful and GraphQL APIs using Golang to support mobile POS financing applications.
- Lead Engineering Team: Serve as the technical leader, mentoring junior engineers, conducting code reviews, and ensuring adherence to best coding practices.
- Technical Vision & Strategy: Collaborate with product and engineering leadership to define and execute the technical roadmap, ensuring scalability, performance, and security.
- Maintain Code Quality: Ensure the team's code is clean, well-documented, tested, and follows best practices for maintainability and scalability.
- Optimize System Performance: Improve system performance, scalability, and reliability, including the optimization of API response times and database interactions.
- Implement Monitoring Solutions: Design and implement robust observability frameworks to monitor API performance, system health, and uptime. Leverage tools like StatsD, Grafana, or Dynatrace to set up monitoring dashboards and alerts.
- DevOps & Cloud Operations: Oversee and contribute to the deployment and operation of applications in cloud environments (AWS), utilizing containerization (Kubernetes).
- Security and Compliance: Implement best practices for API security, data privacy, and compliance with relevant financial regulations.
- Collaborate Across Teams: Work closely with product management, mobile developers, frontend engineers, and QA teams to ensure seamless product delivery.
- Incident Management: Lead troubleshooting efforts and root cause analysis for production issues, ensuring timely resolution and preventative action.
Requirements:
- 5+ years of professional experience in systems development.
- Proficiency in Golang: Extensive experience developing APIs and backend services using Golang.
- API Expertise: Proven experience in designing and developing RESTful and GraphQL APIs.
- Leadership Experience: Previous experience in a technical lead or senior developer role, mentoring teams, and leading architecture decisions.
- Cloud Experience: Familiarity with cloud platforms like AWS, GCP, or Azure, and experience with containerization technologies like Docker and Kubernetes.
- Database Skills: Strong understanding of both SQL and NoSQL databases, such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB.
- Microservices Architecture: Experience working in a microservices environment, designing systems that are modular, scalable, and resilient.
- Security-Focused: Deep understanding of API security standards (OAuth, JWT, etc.), data encryption, and compliance within the fintech or payments industry.
- Experience with observability tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger, OpenTelemetry, etc.) to monitor distributed systems.
- Strong experience in automated testing, including unit, integration, and end-to-end tests.
- CI/CD & Automation: Experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing frameworks, and deployment tools.
- Mobile Experience: Experience working with iOS and/or Android platforms
- Strong Problem-Solving Skills: Ability to troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues quickly and efficiently.
- Excellent Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
Why choose Koalafi: A career at Koalafi means opportunities to tackle exciting challenges every single day. We take pride in a culture of innovation, trust, and ownership. You'll get outside your comfort zone, build meaningful relationships, and most of all, take charge of projects that ultimately help people get the things they need most.
Who we are & what we value:
- We focus on what's most important
- We set clear expectations and deliver
- We embrace challenges to reach our full potential
- We ask, "How can this be better?"
- We move fast together
Benefits:
At Koalafi, you will have a direct impact on our products and help shape the company's success. We offer competitive compensation & benefits packages to keep you at your best:
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
- 20 PTO days + 11 paid holidays
- 401(k) retirement with company matching
- Student Loan & Tuition Reimbursement
- Commuter assistance
- Parental leave (maternal + paternal)
- Inclusion and Associate Engagement Programs
