About PayNet: Payments Network Malaysia (PayNet) is Malaysia's premier payments network and central infrastructure for financial markets. We innovate, build and operate world-class payment systems and financial market infrastructures that safely, reliably and efficiently enable the functioning and development of Malaysia's financial system as well as the economy as a whole.
About the Division:
Building the backbone of Malaysia's payment infrastructure. Led by Chief Technology Officer, Technology designs, evolves, and secures the always-on architecture that powers trusted, scalable digital payment services for the nation.
Summary of responsibility:
Principal Engineer responsible for leading and shaping back-end engineering through technical leadership, system architecture, and hands-on development. This role drives the design of scalable, secure solutions on AWS Cloud, establishes engineering standards, mentors teams, and partners closely with stakeholders to deliver high‑quality systems aligned to PayNet's business goals. The role also leads the transition toward modernized in‑house development, reducing dependency on vendor outsourcing and fostering continuous engineering excellence.
Key responsibilities:
- Proficiency in Web Technologies: Exhibit a strong understanding of web development technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and server-side languages like Golang, Java, or Python, Ruby. Stay updated with the latest web development frameworks and tools to effectively build scalable and performant web applications.
- Database Design and Optimization: Excel in designing and optimizing databases. Have a deep understanding of database management systems like Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, or MongoDB. Able to architect efficient database schemas, write optimized queries, and implement indexing strategies to ensure fast and reliable data access.
- Architectural Excellence: Excel in designing and architecting scalable, efficient, and secure back-end systems. Understand the importance of system design principles, such as modularity, separation of concerns, and scalability. Learning from them, one can focus on honing architectural skills to create robust and future-proof solutions.
- Scalability and Performance Optimization: Focus on building scalable and high-performing web applications. Implement caching mechanisms, load balancing strategies, and leverage cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud to ensure that the applications can handle high traffic loads and maintain optimal performance.
- API Design and Integration: Have expertise in designing and building APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). Understand RESTful principles, design API endpoints that are intuitive and easy to consume, and seamlessly integrate with third-party services or platforms
What will make you successful
You will be successful by bringing deep expertise in designing and building scalable, secure back‑end systems on AWS, combined with strong hands‑on engineering capability. The ability to set high technical standards, make sound architectural decisions, and guide teams through influence rather than authority is critical. Success in this role requires mentoring engineers, driving modern in‑house development practices, and reducing reliance on vendor outsourcing through strong technical ownership. Close collaboration with product, engineering, and business stakeholders to translate strategic goals into reliable, high‑quality systems, while continuously improving engineering maturity and delivery excellence will define your impact.
Must-have:
- Programming Languages: Proficiency in languages like Java, Golang, Python, Ruby, or Node.js. Candidate should have a strong command of these languages and can write clean, readable, maintainable, efficient, and scalable code.
- Web Frameworks: Expertise in popular web frameworks such as Django (Python), Ruby on Rails (Ruby), Spring (Java), or Express.js (Node.js). Implementation experience with SMTP, Tomcat, Apache, Oracle WebLogic, Oracle DB, JBoss, Spring, Grafana, Prometheus, Elastic Search, Logstash, Kibana etc. Leverage these frameworks to develop robust and efficient back-end systems
Advantage to have:
- Minimum 10 years of experience in software engineering or enterprise application development, with at least 5 years in a leadership or principal engineering role.
- Database Management: Knowledge of database management systems like Oracle, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Oracle is important. Have experience in designing and optimizing database schemas, writing efficient queries, and ensuring data integrity.
- Cloud Platforms: Familiarity with cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud or Azure. Implementation experience with Cloud offerings from AWS, Azure or GCP such as EC2, ECS, S3, Route53, ELB, Stackdriver, RunScope, PagerDuty, SaaS, PaaS will be an advantage. Leverage these platforms to deploy and scale web applications, utilize managed services, and ensure high availability and performance.
- Performance Optimization: Knowledge of performance optimization techniques. Able to analyze and optimize web application performance, including database queries, caching mechanisms, and server-side optimizations.
