Why PayNet / Why Now

Strengthen backend platforms critical to onboarding participants into Malaysia's payment ecosystem
Scale and stabilize systems as onboarding volumes, complexity, and integration demands increase
Reduce long-term operational and performance risk through better backend architecture and design
Own backend decisions that directly affect platform reliability, security, and partner experience

TL;DR

Design and own backend services that underpin critical participant onboarding platforms
Build scalable, secure, and high-performance systems used at national scale
Operate as a self-directed technical owner — identify problems, propose solutions, and drive them to production with minimal handholding
Set the code review bar and technical delivery standards for the team
Actively 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 onboarding
Poor architectural decisions create long-term operational risk and rework
Senior engineers set the technical bar for quality, performance, and security
Strong backend ownership enables faster delivery without compromising stability
A 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 implementation
Design and lead architecture for scalable, high-performance backend systems, from first principles where needed
Own end-to-end delivery: design → build → test → deploy → post-release stability, with minimal supervision once direction is aligned
Proactively 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 Python
Design and optimize database schemas and queries to ensure performance and data integrity
Write unit and integration tests as a default part of delivery, not an afterthought
Troubleshoot 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 them
Refactoring database queries to remove performance bottlenecks before they're flagged by monitoring

Leading code reviews that catch security or reliability issues before merge, and using the review as a teaching moment for the author
Owning a critical production incident end-to-end: triage, root cause analysis, fix, and postmortem write-up
Spending 3–5 hours a week (not just when there's time) on pairing or reviewing with junior engineers
Adapting 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 testing
Proven experience building RESTful APIs and scalable backend systems
Solid understanding of relational databases, SQL, and performance optimization
Strong, structured problem-solving ability — can walk through how they diagnose an issue, not just state the fix
Experience 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 services
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation
Knowledge of backend security best practices (authentication, authorization, data protection) especially relevant in a payments context
Experience with monitoring, logging, and performance tuning tools
Prior experience in fintech, payments, or other regulated/high-availability environments

Backend Engineer - Platform Engineering