Senior Back End Engineer

Nova Pioneer is looking for a rockstar Senior Back End Engineer to be part of our Post School Success Platform team and ready to start in January 2026. The successful candidate should be able to legally work in either Kenya/ Nigeria.

ABOUT NOVA PIONEER

Nova Pioneer is a pan-African network of schools reimagining education to develop innovators and leaders who will shape the future. With campuses across Kenya and South Africa, we deliver rigorous, values-driven learning that equips students with the skills, mindsets, and confidence to thrive in a rapidly changing world.  We are extending this impact through blended digital and in-person programmes that help young people thrive after school

ABOUT THE POST-SCHOOL SUCCESS PLATFORM

Africa has the world’s youngest, fastest-growing population and a looming employment gap. In Kenya alone, 67% of youth aged 15–34 are unemployed, and most secondary graduates lack structured support to navigate tertiary study, employment, or entrepreneurship. Nova Pioneer created the Post-School Success Platform (PSSP) to close this gap. PSSP is a blended online-offline ecosystem that acts as a “cockpit and coach” for youth, curating and connecting fragmented career, university, and entrepreneurship resources into one guided pathway.

Through three interlinked programmes—Post School Prep (PSP) for students, The Graduate Platform (TGP) for alumni, and the Innovator Pathway (IP) for young entrepreneurs—PSSP combines an AI-enabled Success Coach with in-person seminars, Graduate Summits, and the African Innovation Olympiad. Over its first three years, PSSP will pilot and scale to 25,000+ members, build a pan-African community, and generate sustainable revenue, positioning Nova Pioneer as a leader in preparing Africa’s youth to thrive beyond school.
 

ABOUT THE ROLE

As the founding Back-End Engineer, you’ll build the core services and data infrastructure powering our AI Success Coach, learner profiles, and post-school pathways. You’ll define patterns, ship reliable APIs, and set technical foundations that can scale across Africa.

Key Output: Robust services and data infrastructure that enable fast releases, protect user data, and measurably improve activation, completion, and progression outcomes.

Key responsibilities of the role include:

Build Core Services and APIs

• Design and implement REST or GraphQL APIs in TypeScript (NestJS or Express).
• Model relational data in PostgreSQL; manage migrations safely and document schema changes.
• Develop background jobs and event-driven workflows for notifications, reports, and AI interactions.
• Collaborate closely with front-end engineers to design efficient, well-documented API contracts.

Design for Scale, Performance, and Low Connectivity

• Apply caching, pagination, and query optimization to support learners in variable network conditions.
• Implement resilient patterns: retries, idempotency keys, and circuit breakers for stability.
• Introduce lightweight observability (logs, metrics, error tracking) suitable for early-stage growth.

Build with Security, Privacy, and Safeguarding in Mind

• Implement authentication and authorization (OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect, RBAC).
• Embed privacy-by-design principles, secure data handling, and clear retention policies.
• Ensure youth safeguarding and consent patterns are integrated into all data flows.

Support the AI Success Coach and Analytics

• Build secure endpoints and data stores for AI interactions with appropriate guardrails.
• Redact or tokenize sensitive information in logs and analytics.
• Define event schemas and data pipelines for user engagement and learning insights.

5. Lead Engineering Quality and Collaboration

• Write automated tests (unit, integration, end-to-end) and maintain CI checks.
• Participate in design reviews, document architectural decisions, and mentor peers.
• Contribute to infrastructure as code, CI/CD automation, and deployment pipelines in cloud environments.

ABOUT YOU

• 5+ years professional experience (or equivalent) shipping production apps/services; 2+ years in a senior/lead capacity.
• Demonstrated technical leadership: led a complex project from design → rollout, influenced cross-team decisions, and mentored engineers.
• Experience in startup or early-stage environments, shipping MVPs to production
• Strong TypeScript and Node.js skills with frameworks such as NestJS or Express.
• Database expertise with PostgreSQL including indexing, query optimization, and migrations.
• Experience with GraphQL or REST, API versioning, and client side caching strategies.
• Message queues and background processing using tools such as RabbitMQ, SQS, or BullMQ.
• Designing systems for low-bandwidth and intermittent connectivity
• Cloud experience on AWS, GCP, or Azure including container registry, managed Postgres, and object storage.
• Strategy and impact. Translate goals into a technical plan with clear trade offs and phased delivery.
• Communication. Write crisp design docs and ADRs and align non technical partners.
• You move quickly but thoughtfully, balancing experimentation with quality.
• You care deeply about building infrastructure that improves education outcomes.
• You are an excellent written and verbal communicator, able to simplify complex ideas, inspire action, and represent Nova Pioneer externally.
• You have strong project management skills. You are able to juggle multiple tasks and meet deadlines and targets.
• You understand best practices for youth safeguarding, data privacy, and responsible AI, ensuring ethical implementation of programmes and technology.
• You are a problem solver - you are proactive in identifying issues and address these thoroughly by making an effort to find appropriate solutions.
• You thrive in start-up or early-stage environments; able to pivot quickly, manage risk, and deliver under tight timelines.
• You have a heart and belief in the African continent and are keen to shape young minds of innovators and leaders.
• You resonate deeply with our mission and culture principles in developing the next generation of innovators and leaders.

HOW TO APPLY

Does working at Nova Pioneer excite you? If so, then apply now!

To apply, please complete the form on the right-hand side of this page. We cannot process applications that are emailed to us.

Please note:  You are encouraged to attach your resume in PDF format to protect formatting.

All applications will be reviewed and applicants notified of the next steps. There are a series of stages in the Nova Pioneer interview process and candidates will be moved forward in the process depending on their success in the previous stage. The process is as follows:

• Phone interview: a short conversation to understand your skills and experience a little better.
• Practical demonstration of what you can do: you will complete a written task or a demonstration related to the role you are applying for. Teachers participate in a half-day selection day at one of our campuses as well as deliver a lesson to a class.
• In-person/virtual interviews: at this point you will visit one of our schools to meet the team and participate in a series of in-person or virtual interviews.
• Final interview: you’ll have a final conversation with the hiring manager before decisions are made.

WORKING AT NOVA PIONEER

Nova Pioneer is a place where our people experience tremendous growth, fast! We invest heavily in the growth of our people because it leads to greater mastery in both us and our students. “Novaneers” work harder and work longer hours than most schools but as a result, the growth they experience is extraordinary. We offer consistent and ongoing personal development and provide clear career pathways that ensure that our people are always achieving their personal and professional best. Nova Pioneer has a highly energetic, entrepreneurial environment where our people get to bring their creative and innovative ideas to life. We look for people who are flexible and who are able to adapt and respond quickly to adversity with a positive, can-do attitude (there are no problems, only solutions!). We welcome challenges and roll with the punches because it makes us, and our students, better. There is no problem too big for us! We bring infectious energy and enthusiasm to everything we do because joy fuels our work and learning. Read more about our culture principles here.

Nova Pioneer will never request an application fee from candidates. If you are contacted with a request to pay a fee from someone claiming to be a Nova Pioneer Talent or Recruitment representative, please do not pay them and report it to us immediately on talent.ke@novapioneer.com or talent.sa@novapioneer.com.