Head of Engineering, Field Verification

About Moniepoint

Moniepoint Inc. operates as Africa’s comprehensive financial platform, serving 20 million businesses and individuals monthly with services including payments, banking, credit, cross-border transactions, and business management tools. As Nigeria's largest merchant acquirer, it facilitates the majority of the nation's POS transactions, handling over $250 billion in digital payments through its subsidiaries.

Opportunity in Kenya

Following the acquisition of Sumac Microfinance Bank, Moniepoint is launching operations in Kenya. This represents an opportunity to help build the business from the ground up, shaping future market strategies across Africa and advancing the company's goal of financial inclusion for millions of users.

Role Overview

The Field Verification platform ensures authenticity of Moniepoint’s customers by coordinating physical, in-person verifications necessary for KYC compliance. Supporting onboarding, loans, compliance, and fraud prevention teams, the platform includes a back office for business unit visibility, a mobile-friendly web app for Field Verification Officers, and APIs for integration.

The platform currently operates in maintenance mode with a small cross-functional team and requires visionary leadership to transition towards prioritized growth, adding features like trip and route optimization, capacity management, a native mobile app, liveness and identity verification APIs, and multi-country scalability.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the technical vision, architecture, and roadmap for the Field Verification platform end to end.
• Transition the team from reactive maintenance to strategic development.
• Manage and expand the cross-functional engineering team as the platform’s scope increases.
• Develop operational efficiencies including trip planning, route optimization, task allocation, and capacity management for field officers.
• Oversee the platform’s APIs, webhooks, and back office tools used by internal business units.
• Deliver a native mobile experience tailored for field officers.
• Ensure data collected is structured, auditable, and compliant with regulatory standards.
• Architect the platform for scalability across multiple countries.
• Collaborate closely with Product and operational teams to align engineering with business needs.
• Define engineering standards, processes, quality metrics, and nurture engineering talent including managers.

Candidate Profile

• Demonstrated progression from hands-on software engineering to leadership roles; direct engineering experience is essential.
• Strong proficiency across backend, web, and mobile development layers.
• Experience building robust platforms servicing multiple user groups and internal teams with flexibility.
• Adaptable problem solver with experience in fintech, e-commerce, logistics, or similar sectors viewed positively.
• Minimum 10 years in software engineering with significant backend experience, preferably Java and Spring Boot.
• At least 5 years in engineering leadership with experience managing managers.
• Excellent stakeholder collaboration and translating business requirements into technical solutions.
• Preferred: experience with location/geospatial data, trip or delivery optimization, compliance-oriented data management, and identity or KYC platforms.

Cultural Fit and Leadership Values

• Customer centricity: Builds empathy and solves root problems.
• Technical craftsmanship and high standards.
• Systematic thinking: scalable decision-making mechanisms.
• Urgency balanced with discipline and risk management.
• Ownership mentality with proactive action.
• Humility and team-first attitude.
• Honest communication and openness.
• Integrity and ethical consistency.

Success Metrics

• Established clear technical leadership and platform direction.
• Team actively delivering enhancements beyond maintenance.
• Improved operational efficiency for field officers and reduced verification costs.
• Delivered native mobile application for field officers.
• Compliance-ready verification data for all business units.
• Platform prepared for new markets expansion.
• Growth of engineering team size and depth.

Benefits of the Role

• Lead a critical and foundational engineering domain impacting all customers.
• Work with a lean, impactful team with room to shape organizational growth.
• Diverse technical challenges spanning backend, mobile, web, location data, compliance, and operational optimization.
• Contribute to an ambitious mission expanding financial services across Africa.

Hiring Process

• Initial recruiter call.
• High-level system design interview focused on engineering principles.
• Panel interview for technical deep dive and leadership attributes.
• Stakeholder management interview assessing collaboration skills.
• Technical and culture fit interview with company CTO.