Posted:1 hour ago
By:Hiring Kenya
Company Details
Industry:
Education Management
Description:
Nova Pioneer Education Group is a Pan-African independent school network offering preschool through secondary education for students from ages 3 through 19. We prepare the next generation of leaders and innovators through world-class teaching methods with an emphasis on 21st century skills. We established Nova Pioneer because we believe education should prepare young people to create their future, not just work in it. Nova Pioneer is a launchpad where ambitious young Africans can begin to shape a better future for the continent and the world. We began by asking ourselves the question, "What capabilities will young people need to succeed in and shape the future that they will encounter, and what approaches to education will best develop those capabilities?” All of our founders have extensive backgrounds in education at top institutions across the globe, having studied at universities such as Harvard and Stanford and led education programs for McKinsey and Co., the African Leadership Academy, and top school networks in the US (Excel Academies). Yet at Nova Pioneer we believe that you never stop learning. So we visited and studied leading schools spanning from Singapore to Peru, and the United States to the United Kingdom. We connected with leaders of the cutting-edge education research, and leading thinkers on 21st Century Learning such as Sir Ken Robinson and teachers and atelieristas from Reggio Emilia, the leading global early education model, to name a few. We launched our first school in South Africa in 2014, with the aim of incorporating the best education models in the world, while keeping it as affordable as possible. We’ve since expanded within South Africa, and to Kenya as well - with our first Kenyan school launching in 2015. In all of our schools, we bring in and train top educators to deliver educational excellence in an environment that nurtures our students to uncover their potential and blaze trails in the world beyond our school walls.
Job Description
ABOUT THE ROLE
- As the founding Back-End Engineer, you’ll build the core services and data infrastructure powering our AI Success Coach, learner profiles, and post-school pathways. You’ll define patterns, ship reliable APIs, and set technical foundations that can scale across Africa.
- Key Output: Robust services and data infrastructure that enable fast releases, protect user data, and measurably improve activation, completion, and progression outcomes.
Key responsibilities of the role include:
Build Core Services and APIs
- Design and implement REST or GraphQL APIs in TypeScript (NestJS or Express).
- Model relational data in PostgreSQL; manage migrations safely and document schema changes.
- Develop background jobs and event-driven workflows for notifications, reports, and AI interactions.
- Collaborate closely with front-end engineers to design efficient, well-documented API contracts.
Design for Scale, Performance, and Low Connectivity
- Apply caching, pagination, and query optimization to support learners in variable network conditions.
- Implement resilient patterns: retries, idempotency keys, and circuit breakers for stability.
- Introduce lightweight observability (logs, metrics, error tracking) suitable for early-stage growth.
Build with Security, Privacy, and Safeguarding in Mind
- Implement authentication and authorization (OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect, RBAC).
- Embed privacy-by-design principles, secure data handling, and clear retention policies.
- Ensure youth safeguarding and consent patterns are integrated into all data flows.
Support the AI Success Coach and Analytics
- Build secure endpoints and data stores for AI interactions with appropriate guardrails.
- Redact or tokenize sensitive information in logs and analytics.
- Define event schemas and data pipelines for user engagement and learning insights.
Lead Engineering Quality and Collaboration
- Write automated tests (unit, integration, end-to-end) and maintain CI checks.
- Participate in design reviews, document architectural decisions, and mentor peers.
- Contribute to infrastructure as code, CI/CD automation, and deployment pipelines in cloud environments.
ABOUT YOU
- 5+ years professional experience (or equivalent) shipping production apps/services; 2+ years in a senior/lead capacity.
- Demonstrated technical leadership: led a complex project from design → rollout, influenced cross-team decisions, and mentored engineers.
- Experience in startup or early-stage environments, shipping MVPs to production
- Strong TypeScript and Node.js skills with frameworks such as NestJS or Express.
- Database expertise with PostgreSQL including indexing, query optimization, and migrations.
- Experience with GraphQL or REST, API versioning, and client side caching strategies.
- Message queues and background processing using tools such as RabbitMQ, SQS, or BullMQ.
- Designing systems for low-bandwidth and intermittent connectivity
- Cloud experience on AWS, GCP, or Azure including container registry, managed Postgres, and object storage.
- Strategy and impact. Translate goals into a technical plan with clear trade offs and phased delivery.
- Communication. Write crisp design docs and ADRs and align non technical partners.
- You move quickly but thoughtfully, balancing experimentation with quality.
- You care deeply about building infrastructure that improves education outcomes.
- You are an excellent written and verbal communicator, able to simplify complex ideas, inspire action, and represent Nova Pioneer externally.
- You have strong project management skills. You are able to juggle multiple tasks and meet deadlines and targets.
- You understand best practices for youth safeguarding, data privacy, and responsible AI, ensuring ethical implementation of programmes and technology.
- You are a problem solver - you are proactive in identifying issues and address these thoroughly by making an effort to find appropriate solutions.
- You thrive in start-up or early-stage environments; able to pivot quickly, manage risk, and deliver under tight timelines.
- You have a heart and belief in the African continent and are keen to shape young minds of innovators and leaders.
- You resonate deeply with our mission and culture principles in developing the next generation of innovators and leaders.
Salary: Discuss During Interview
Education: Diploma
Employment Type: Full Time
