[Hiring] Tech Lead - Messaging Experience Engineering @Watu

Role Description

The Tech Lead is one of the most important individual roles in the engineering organization. You are the technical authority for your squad - you own the architecture, set the quality bar, govern external partners when applicable, and are the primary escalation point for every engineering decision in your domain.

This role carries light people management alongside deep technical ownership. You will have 3-5 direct reports (Backend Engineers, Frontend/Mobile Engineer, QA Engineer). You are responsible for their day-to-day unblocking, their technical growth, and honest feedback on their work.

• Squad: Messaging Experience Engineering
• Partner governance: Infobip used as API layer only - all flow logic, orchestration, and business rules owned in-house.
• Primary tech focus: WhatsApp Business API, SMS, FCM, Conversational orchestration, Event-driven

Domain responsibilities include:

• Own the messaging dispatch layer - SMS, WhatsApp, and FCM.
• Own the conversational orchestration engine.
• Govern the Infobip integration.
• Own delivery reliability.
• Design for scale across multiple markets.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering experience.
• At least 2 years as the de facto technical authority for a significant product area or team.
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals.
• Proven ability to review and reason about code across the full stack.
• Experience in an Agile/Scrum or Kanban environment.
• Clear, direct communicator.

Requirements

• Experience building conversational product systems using WhatsApp Business API or similar.
• Strong hands-on experience with one or several backend languages (Java, Python, Node.js, etc.).
• Understanding of event-driven messaging systems (Kafka, RabbitMQ, etc.).
• Familiarity with SMS gateway integration and delivery optimization.
• Experience designing stateful conversational flows in a microservices architecture.

Benefits

• Flexible location - Europe or Nairobi.
• Opportunity to work in a fast-growing fintech company.
• Engage in meaningful work that impacts customers across Africa and Latin America.

Company Description

Watu is a fintech company operating across Africa and Latin America, providing device financing and financial services to customers historically excluded from the formal financial system. We finance motorcycles, smartphones, and other productive assets through a technology-first, data-driven approach.

• Our platform supports millions of customer journeys across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and beyond.
• Continued expansion into LATAM.