Description review

Senior Backend Engineer

Tala · Mexico · back to the listing

HR standards

60/100

needs work

Title ↔ description

92/100

strong

Reads as

Backend Engineer

100% confident

What this role officially is

software developer — ESCO, the EU occupation classification

Software developers implement or program all kinds of software systems based on specifications and designs by using programming languages, tools, and platforms.

Also known as: application developer, application programmer, solutions developer, programmer, software specialist, application software developer

How others title the same work

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What the listing never says

  • 18 bullet points. Long requirement lists deter qualified candidates, who read them as hard gates. Scope clarity
  • No pay range published. Candidates cannot tell whether applying is worth their time. Pay transparency

The listing, marked up

Nothing in the wording of this listing tripped a check. The scores above still judge how complete and coherent it is.

About Tala

Tala is AI-native credit infrastructure for the global majority, combining proprietary risk intelligence with an expanding network of capital and distribution partners to power credit access at scale. Backed by more than $500 million in funding, Tala has distributed more than $7 billion in capital to more than 13 million customers across Africa, Latin America, and Asia—building one of the most robust datasets on thin-file borrowers anywhere in the world. Our mission is simple yet bold: to unleash the economic power of the global majority. We are looking for daring, data-driven leaders passionate about building the trust and credit infrastructure for the global majority.

Our pioneering work and proven impact have earned us consistent recognition, including being named to:

CNBC’s Disruptor 50 for five years.

CNBC’s World's Top Fintech Companies for two consecutive years.

Forbes’ Fintech 50 list for nine consecutive years.

Visionary investors, persuaded by the economic power of the global majority, have committed half a billion dollars in equity and debt to Tala's success.

Given the global nature of our team, we operate on a remote-first approach with office hubs in Santa Monica, CA (HQ); Nairobi, Kenya; Mexico City, Mexico; Manila, the Philippines; and Bangalore, India.

Most Talazens join us because they connect with our mission. If you are energized by the impact you can make at Tala, we’d love to hear from you!

What You'll Do

• Design, develop, and maintain robust backend services, APIs, and data integration layers that power key product features.

• Review design documents, perform code reviews, and weigh in on implementation choices from other technical teams.

• Write clean, efficient, and easily maintainable code, strictly adhering to established coding standards and best practices.

• Enhance overall code quality, performance, and security by participating in thorough code reviews.

• Design and optimize database schemas and queries to guarantee high performance and system reliability.

• Contribute to the testing infrastructure to increase code coverage for backend modules.

• Troubleshoot and resolve technical issues quickly and effectively across both development and production environments.

• Advance monitoring and alerting capabilities of backend modules to allow proactive improvements to availability and response times.

What You'll Need

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in designing and developing applications using Java, Kotlin, and/or Scala. This includes exposure to a web framework like Spring.

• Developed and launched large scale consumer applications with the backend on cloud infrastructure (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure) using microservices architecture paradigms.

• Proven problem-solving abilities and a strong drive for independent learning and work.

• Expert knowledge in REST API design and development for mobile/web use.

• Expert knowledge in architecture & system design.

• Expert proficiency in Agile development process

Nice to Have

• Exposure to containerization technologies, such as Docker or Kubernetes.

• Familiarity with MariaDB.

• Familiarity with Kafka.

• Familiarity with production monitoring tools, including logging (e.g., SumoLogic, Kibana), basic APM (Application Performance Monitoring) tools, and observability frameworks such as OpenTelemetry.

Compensation

Additional Information

Our vision is to build a new financial ecosystem where everyone can participate on equal footing and access the tools they need to be financially healthy. We strongly believe that inclusion fosters innovation and we’re proud to have a diverse global team that represents a multitude of backgrounds, cultures, and experience. We hire talented people regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

How this was produced

Highlights are found by rule, not by a model: each one is a phrase matched at a known position, and every note is a template we wrote. The two scores come from a typed-decision model (Jev) that reads the listing against the official role definition and real listings for the same role, and returns probabilities rather than prose — it never writes any of the words on this page, and never chooses what to highlight.

Deterministic penalty applied to the HR score: 8 points (from 68 before penalties). Reviewed 21 Sep 2026.