Founding Backend Engineer - Fintech / BNPL to $7000
Founding Backend Engineer - Build the Klarna for Rent (BNPL)
The Opportunity
Join the founding engineering team building the Klarna/Twisto for home rentals across MENA. We're solving a massive problem: millions of tenants pay 12 months rent upfront. We're making monthly payments possible, starting in the UAE. The market is just opening up - perfect timing to build something massive.
The Founders
Built by proven entrepreneurs: YC alum with successful exit who built payment infrastructure for Fortune 500s, partnered with founder of a VC firm that's produced multiple unicorns globally. Together, we bring deep expertise in building, scaling, and funding billion-dollar fintech companies.
The Role
We need a brilliant backend engineer to build our core risk engine and payment infrastructure from the ground up. You'll work directly with our Head of Risk (ex-unicorn BNPL company) to turn risk policies into production systems.
You'll Own:
- Building our bank statement parsing engine (PDF processing, transaction categorization, income verification)
- Implementing real-time risk decisioning that approves/rejects applications in seconds
- Creating payment integrations with UAE's leading payment providers
- Designing APIs for high-performance tenant application processing
Building the data pipeline that turns financial data into instant credit decisions
Technical Challenges:
- Parse bank statements from 20+ UAE banks in real-time
- Process lending decisions in <10 seconds
- Build for 100,000+ monthly transactions from day one
- Create a system that scales across multiple countries and currencies
Design infrastructure that handles sensitive financial data securely
What We're Looking For
Must-Haves:
- Minimum 5-6 years building fintech/lending/banking backends (more experience is awesome!)
- Strong Python experience with production systems at scale
- Experience with bank statement parsing or open banking APIs (TrueLayer, Tink, Salt Edge, Nordigen, Kontomatik)
- Built high-throughput transaction processing systems
- Experience with PostgreSQL and data pipeline architecture
Understanding of financial systems and risk decisioning
Huge Plus:
- Worked at companies like Revolut, Wise, Monobank, Twisto, or any BNPL/lending fintech
- Experience with European open banking platforms (Salt Edge, Nordigen/GoCardless, Tink)
- Built consumer lending products that scaled to 100k+ users
- Experience with FastAPI, Django, or Flask for API development
- Knowledge of Node.js for specific microservices
- Experience with Middle Eastern payment systems
Former founding engineer who's seen 0→1 journey
What You Get
- Own the core product - your code will process millions in rent payments monthly
- Founding engineer equity - real ownership in a rocket ship, not 0.01% options
- Direct line to founders - your ideas ship to production in days, not months
- Build your own empire - hire and lead the entire backend team as we scale
- Work with the best - Head of Risk from unicorn BNPL, YC founders, VC who's built unicorns
- Massive market impact - help millions of families stop paying $50k upfront for housing
Shape the technical culture - define how we build, not follow someone else's playbook
Tech Stack
You'll help define it, but we're thinking:
- Python for core services (risk engine, bank parsing, data pipeline)
- PostgreSQL for transactions, Redis for caching
- AWS/GCP for infrastructure
- FastAPI or Django for REST APIs
Docker, Kubernetes, modern CI/CD practices
Interview Process
Fast and transparent (total time: 1 week max)
- 30-min chat with founders (background + culture fit)
- Technical discussion with Head of Risk (system design)
- Paid technical project (real problem we're solving)
- Final decision within 48 hours