Founding Principal Engineer

Location: Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa About Ezeebit Ezeebit is an enterprise-grade stablecoin and cryptocurrency payments platform that enables businesses to accept, hedge, convert, and settle digital assets seamlessly. We provide the infrastructure for merchants to move value globally – securely, compliantly, and instantly – in-store and online. Our full-stack platform includes Android-based ePOS terminals, payment APIs, e-commerce plugins, and backend infrastructure that swaps crypto into stablecoins on‑the‑fly and settles merchants in local currency or stablecoins. We’re FSCA/CASP registered in South Africa and expanding throughout Africa. Ezeebit has raised $2.05 million in seed funding led by Founder Collective, with investors including Raba Partnership, Terry Angelos, Anton Katz, Nadir Khamissa, David De Picciotto, and Chris Harmse. We’ve already processed millions of dollars in transactions and are positioned to drive mass crypto adoption across the continent. Opportunity We’re looking for an exceptional Founding Principal Engineer to help shape the next phase of Ezeebit’s platform. This is a deeply hands‑on, senior engineering role . You will: Spend the majority of your time writing, reviewing, and shipping production code Build and evolve core payments and stablecoin infrastructure Work directly with blockchain-integrated systems: blockchain nodes, custody and wallet infrastructure, and on/off‑chain crypto services Take technical ownership of critical systems in production Work directly with the founders on product and architecture decisions Collaborate with internal and external engineering teams Help lay the foundations of our long‑term engineering culture This is not a CTO role today , but there is a clear path to broader technical leadership as the company scales and depending on mutual fit. What You’ll Do Build & Ship Core Platform Features (Hands‑On Coding) Design, implement, and operate backend services that power our: payment APIs and merchant integrations, stablecoin and crypto payment / payout flows, settlement and reconciliation systems Write clean, well‑structured, well‑tested code and guide others to do the same. Work across the lifecycle: design → prototype → build → deploy → monitor → improve . Ensure systems are reliable, observable, and maintainable under real‑world load. Be integrally involved in designing and building new features for our stablecoin payments portal , from first principles through to production. Blockchain, Wallet & Crypto Services Work directly with blockchain nodes and blockchain services (RPC providers, node infra, indexers). Contribute to custody and wallet infrastructure (account models, wallet services, transaction orchestration). Integrate and operate crypto services (swaps, conversions, on/off‑ramps). Help design robust patterns for on‑chain/off‑chain reconciliation , monitoring, and recovery. Own Architecture & Technical Direction Help define and evolve a scalable architecture for: high‑volume transaction processing, multi‑chain stablecoin and crypto payments, settlement and reconciliation, multi‑country, multi‑currency operations. Make thoughtful build‑vs‑buy decisions. Champion engineering best practices: code quality, testing, performance, operational excellence . Security, Reliability & Compliance by Design Apply a security‑first mindset to payment flows, wallet boundaries, APIs, and infrastructure. Partner with compliance and operations to ensure AML/CFT and data‑protection requirements are supported. Strengthen observability , incident response, and post‑incident learning. Collaborate & Lead Without Heavy Management Serve as a technical reference point for the team and provide mentorship. Collaborate with internal and external engineering partners to deliver high‑quality outcomes. Contribute to our engineering culture , standards, and hiring processes. Who You Are Must‑Have Experience Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience. 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including ownership of production backend or platform systems. Strong experience actively coding distributed backend services (APIs, services, data stores, queues) in a modern cloud environment. Experience in payments, fintech, wallets, or other money‑movement systems (settlement, reconciliation, transaction processing, ledgers). Solid understanding of reliability and correctness in transactional systems (idempotency, retries, consistency, failure modes). Hands‑on experience with cloud infrastructure (preferably AWS) and DevOps practices. Proficiency in modern programming languages, including: Java, Python, SQL (complex queries, schema design, optimisation), JavaScript, HTML , plus any relevant backend or systems languages you’ve used in production (e.g. Go, TypeScript, Kotlin, Rust, etc.) (This role requires strong coding depth across multiple languages – we care more about capability and versatility than any single stack.) Strong Plus Experience working with blockchain nodes or blockchain infra providers. Experience with custody and wallet infrastructure (wallet services, orchestration, key/wallet abstraction). Experience integrating crypto services (swaps, stablecoin conversions, on/off‑ramps). Exposure to security and compliance in regulated financial or crypto environments. Prior experience as an early engineer or technical lead in a high‑growth startup. You’ll Thrive Here If You… Enjoy coding most days while also thinking at an architectural level. Want to work at the intersection of payments, crypto, and emerging markets . Are comfortable with ambiguity, iteration, and rapid execution . Have strong product instincts and care about customer outcomes. Take end‑to‑end ownership rather than working in narrow lanes. Communicate well with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders. What We Offer ✨Equity participation in a high‑growth fintech startup