Senior Solutions Architect (Digital Platforms)

Role Overview

M-PESA Africa is seeking a Senior Solutions Architect to shape how its Super App, mini-app ecosystem, and digital payment channels are designed and operated across six markets. You will set technical direction for customer experiences and payment acceptance, balancing scale, security, performance, regulatory needs, and the practical realities of diverse devices and network conditions.

As a senior individual contributor, you will work across engineering, product, security, compliance, and market teams, turning platform-wide challenges into standards and architectures that teams can implement. You will also strengthen architectural capability through mentoring, design governance, and clear communication with technical and executive stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end architecture of the Super App, including its core services, mini-app runtime, SDKs, and marketplace across six markets.
• Set SDK design and lifecycle policies covering API contracts, versioning, compatibility, documentation, release management, and retirement of older versions.
• Define the technical, security, and operational criteria for onboarding, reviewing, certifying, releasing, and managing third-party mini-apps.
• Guide the evolution of digital experiences using approaches such as composable interfaces, micro-frontends, headless services, backend-for-frontend patterns, and cloud-native deployment.
• Establish architecture principles, reference designs, and review practices for mobile and digital platforms, working with Legal, Compliance, Risk, and local market teams on relevant obligations.
• Set architecture and security standards for QR payments, hosted payment pages, and NFC or Tap-to-Pay acceptance, including merchant integration, tokenisation, and interoperability with wallet, switching, and settlement systems.
• Define API-first and event-driven integration approaches linking the Super App, M-PESA systems, partner platforms, mini-app developers, and platform services; contribute to developer portals and sandbox environments.
• Address performance, resilience, and security across varied devices and network conditions, including offline behaviour, graceful degradation, mini-app isolation, permissions, secure communication, fraud controls, and abuse detection.
• Represent digital platform architecture in review boards and group forums, mentor architects across markets, prepare architecture materials for senior technology leaders, and lead evaluations of relevant vendors and technologies.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or a related discipline.
• At least eight years of experience in solutions or platform architecture, mobile or digital engineering, or a closely related technical field, including three or more years in a senior or lead role.
• Experience designing enterprise-scale consumer digital platforms in financial services, fintech, or telecommunications; demonstrated ownership of a Super App or mini-app architecture and its third-party governance is required.
• Strong understanding of hybrid and WebView runtimes, mini-app platforms, mobile and web architecture, and the constraints of iOS and Android distribution, application lifecycles, and security models.
• Experience setting SDK strategy for external developers or partners, including API design, documentation, version management, backward compatibility, and deprecation.
• Practical knowledge of cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP, and integration approaches including REST or GraphQL APIs, API gateways, Kafka or other event streaming, and backend-for-frontend design.
• Familiarity with composable interfaces, micro-frontends, headless architecture, and resilient or offline-first mobile design.
• Knowledge of platform security practices such as sandboxing, permission controls, secure SDKs, mTLS, OAuth 2.0, and OpenID Connect, with an understanding of OWASP MASVS, app store policies, or comparable controls.
• Working knowledge of QR payment standards such as EMVCo, hosted payment flows, and NFC or HCE acceptance, along with experience building high-availability, high-performance consumer platforms.
• Ability to communicate complex architecture decisions clearly, solve problems methodically, and influence teams across markets and functions.
• Helpful additional experience includes mobile money or digital financial services in emerging markets; multi-country regulation in Sub-Saharan Africa; mini-app technologies such as WeChat Mini Programs or Alipay GMP; or partner certification and developer ecosystem programmes.
• Exposure to AI- or ML-based personalisation, recommendation systems, or conversational interfaces is an advantage. TOGAF or AWS/Azure architecture certification is also beneficial.