Senior Backend Engineer - Platform Engineering

Why PayNet / Why Now Strengthen backend platforms critical to onboarding participants into Malaysia's payment ecosystemScale and stabilize systems as onboarding volumes, complexity, and integration demands increaseReduce long-term operational and performance risk through better backend architecture and designOwn backend decisions that directly affect platform reliability, security, and partner experience TL;DR Design and own backend services that underpin critical participant onboarding platformsBuild scalable, secure, and high-performance systems used at national scaleOperate as a self-directed technical owner — identify problems, propose solutions, and drive them to production with minimal handholdingSet the code review bar and technical delivery standards for the teamActively coach junior engineers through their day-to-day work, not just in passing Why This Role Matters Backend systems directly impact the reliability and scalability of national payment onboardingPoor architectural decisions create long-term operational risk and reworkSenior engineers set the technical bar for quality, performance, and securityStrong backend ownership enables faster delivery without compromising stabilityA senior who can operate independently frees leads/architects to focus on cross-team and strategic problems What You Will Actually Do Ownership & Solutioning Take a problem statement (not a spec) and independently research, propose, and defend a technical solution — including trade-off analysis, not just implementationDesign and lead architecture for scalable, high-performance backend systems, from first principles where neededOwn end-to-end delivery: design → build → test → deploy → post-release stability, with minimal supervision once direction is alignedProactively flag architectural or scalability risks before they become production incidents, rather than waiting to be asked Engineering Develop and maintain backend services and RESTful APIs using Java, Golang, or PythonDesign and optimize database schemas and queries to ensure performance and data integrityWrite unit and integration tests as a default part of delivery, not an afterthoughtTroubleshoot complex production issues and drive root-cause analysis through to permanent fixes Code Review & Engineering Practices Set and enforce code review standards (PR size, test coverage expectations, security checks, documentation)Review peers' and juniors' code with a bias toward teaching — explain the "why," not just flag the "what"Champion CI/CD, branching, and release discipline appropriate to a national payment system (audit trail, rollback safety, change management)Adapt quickly to the team's existing tooling, workflows, and review culture — able to plug into an established process within the first few weeks rather than needing it re-explained repeatedly Examples of This Role in Practice Given only "onboarding is timing out under load," independently profiles the system, identifies the bottleneck, and ships a fix — without needing the root cause pre-diagnosed for themRefactoring database queries to remove performance bottlenecks before they're flagged by monitoringLeading code reviews that catch security or reliability issues before merge, and using the review as a teaching moment for the authorOwning a critical production incident end-to-end: triage, root cause analysis, fix, and postmortem write-upSpending 3–5 hours a week (not just "when there's time") on pairing or reviewing with junior engineersAdapting within the first sprint or two to the team's existing Git workflow, review cadence, and definition-of-done — asking sharp clarifying questions rather than needing repeated onboarding Required What Will Help You Succeed 5+ years of backend engineering experience, with strong proficiency in Java/Spring Boot (Golang or Python a plus)Proven track record of end-to-end ownership: design, troubleshooting, structured problem analysis, and unit testingProven experience building RESTful APIs and scalable backend systemsSolid understanding of relational databases, SQL, and performance optimizationStrong, structured problem-solving ability — can walk through how they diagnose an issue, not just state the fixExperience mentoring engineers in a hands-on, ongoing capacity, and working in Agile environments Helpful Experience across multiple backend languages or frameworks (e.g., Golang, Node.js)Exposure to microservices and distributed systems architecture (event-driven design, sagas, service boundaries)Experience integrating third-party APIs and external servicesFamiliarity with CI/CD pipelines and deployment automationKnowledge of backend security best practices (authentication, authorization, data protection) especially relevant in a payments contextExperience with monitoring, logging, and performance tuning toolsPrior experience in fintech, payments, or other regulated/high-availability environments