We're making Africa the first cashless continent.
In 2017, over half the population in Sub-Saharan Africa had no bank account. That's for good reason—the fees are too high, the closest branch can be miles away, and nobody takes cards. Without access to financial institutions, people are forced to keep their savings under the mattress. Small business owners rely on lenders who charge extortionate rates. Parents spend hours waiting in line to pay school fees in cash.
We're solving this by building financial services that just work: no account fees, instantly available, and accepted everywhere. In places where electricity, water and roads don't always work, you can still send money with Wave. In 2017, we launched a mobile app in Senegal for cash deposit, withdrawal, and peer-to-peer and business payments. Now, we have millions of users across six countries and are growing fast.
Our goal is to make Africa the first cashless continent and that's where you come in...
Wave is now the largest financial institution in Senegal, with over 7 million users. And, we’re still in the early days of our product roadmap and potential impact on people’s everyday lives.
As a Senior Engineer, you will be an integral part of one of our product teams. We are seeking an individual who excels in delivering high-quality individual contributor work, guided by comprehensive design docs, passion for UX, user feedback, and data analysis.
In this role, you will be expected to elevate standards and exemplify best practices within your team. Strong communication skills and a proactive, driven mindset are crucial for success, as you will frequently collaborate with colleagues across various departments and roles to ensure project progression and overcome challenges.
You'll join an autonomous, cross-functional team focused on a single area of Wave's product. Each team is led by a Product Manager and an Engineering Manager or Tech Lead. We organize projects to give you as much ownership as possible. Typically, you'll be responsible for a feature or improvement end-to-end, from design through deployment.
Our to-do list changes constantly, but here are some recent projects:
- Enabling people to use their Wave app to pay for products in stores.
- Allowing people to pay their electricity bills with Wave by integrating with electrical utility companies.
- Building an app for business owners to pay their employees' salaries using Wave.
- Allowing people to pay for their transportation on taxis, trains & buses.
In this role you’ll:
- Collaborate with Product to design and build features and tooling for both external and internal users.
- Investigate user feedback and resolve system bugs.
- Drive technical design discussions and direction.
- Actively pair with others and perform code reviews.
- Mentor engineers and foster their growth.
- Hold project debriefs and help us improve our project development cycle.
- This is a fully remote role. Candidates must be based in one of our talent hub countries (UK, Spain, USA, Canada, Kenya and Ghana) or in one of our operating markets in Africa including Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, or Burkina Faso.
- Wave provides a yearly $1,200 stipend to support coworking meetups with teammates.
- Remote team members are expected to travel to our operational markets (e.g. Senegal or Côte d'Ivoire) at least once a year. Exceptions apply, but we’ve found this key to understanding our users and product.
- We run performance reviews twice a year and award bonuses or promotions to strong performers who have been with the company for more than six months.
- Our salaries are competitive and are calculated using a transparent formula. For this role, depending on your level and location, we offer a salary of $167,000- $178,200 USD, plus a generous equity package.
- Major benefits:
- Subsidized health insurance for you and your dependents and retirement contributions (both vary from country to country).
- 6 months of fully paid parental leave and subsidized fertility assistance.
- Flexible vacation, with most folks taking between 21-30 days exclusive of statutory holidays.
- $10,000 annual charitable donation matching.
- Minimum of 5 years of professional experience as a software engineer.
- Fluent in English, bilingual in French is a big bonus.
- Successful candidates must be willing to travel to one of our operating locations at least once per year for a minimum of 6 consecutive days.
- Reflexively ask yourself, “is this code the best way to make my users happy?”
- Want to learn to solve hard problems and aren’t afraid to ask for help when you get stuck.
- Are excited to learn about complex systems.
- Can communicate clearly with colleagues who work, speak and think differently.
- Work to make things easier for the next engineer who will touch your code.
- Always try to improve as a programmer and colleague.
- Are excited to deeply understand the inner workings of the tools you use.
We care about the big picture. We don’t hire engineers to just ship tickets. We hire them to solve problems. That means caring deeply about outcomes, understanding context, and jumping in wherever something’s broken, even if it’s technically “not your area.” When we see problems, inefficiencies, or opportunities to make something better, we act. We dig into operational issues, clarify fuzzy product specs, or step into unfamiliar code to help unblock teammates.
We move as fast as possible. Speed matters. It lets us try things quickly, get feedback early, and course-correct while it’s cheap. So we write small PRs. We aim for MVPs. We leave TODOs and file follow-ups. We don’t over-perfect v1. That said, we’re building a financial product. Some things—like money movement, correctness, or security—deserve more caution.
We like boring technology. We favor tools that are reliable, well-understood, and easy to debug. This keeps us focused on solving meaningful problems instead of wrestling with unpredictable infrastructure. If a new technology helps us move faster, build safer, or solve a real need, we’ll consider it. But we don’t adopt tools just because they’re new—we adopt them because they’re right.
Simplicity is a strategy. It lets us focus our energy where it matters most: serving our users.
Our stack (prior experience is a strong plus, but not required):
- backend: Python 3 (+ mypy)
- API layer: GraphQL
- android frontend: Kotlin/Jetpack
- iOS frontend: Swift/SwiftUI
- web frontend: TypeScript/React
- database: Postgres
- infrastructure: GCP/Terraform
- orchestration: Kubernetes
#LI-VV1 #LI-REMOTE
- We have a rapidly growing in-country team in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, and Uganda, plus remote team members spread across the world.
- We're deeply passionate about our mission of bringing radically affordable financial services to the people who need them most.
- We foster autonomy for our employees. You'll own your projects at every stage, from understanding the problem to monitoring your solution in production.
- We raised the largest Series A in Africa in 2021. Our world-class investors, include Founders Fund, Sequoia Heritage, Stripe, Ribbit Capital, Y Combinator, and Partech Africa.
- We are on Y Combinator's top companies by revenue.
Fill out the form below, and upload a resume in English and a cover letter describing your interest in Wave and the role.
We review applications frequently and recommend that you apply to the role that most closely aligns with your skills, experience and career goals.
Wave is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.
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