Technical Lead

Job Description

Job Description

At Koalafi, we believe in a world where no one has to put an important purchase on hold. That's why we're making it easier for more people to pay for big purchases over time.

Retailers across the country rely on us to offer flexible lease-to-own financing to their non-prime consumers, while increasing sales and strengthening customer loyalty. Their 2M+ customers love us because we provide a flexible way for them to make payments and give them an opportunity to improve their credit. Our 200+ Koalafi teammates enjoy inspiring and challenging work that accelerates their careers.

Interested in learning more about how we're transforming the financing experience and joining our team?

Job Summary :

Are you ready to lead the transformation of mission-critical financial systems? We're seeking a talented Platform Engineering Leader to join Koalafi and lead our newly formed Customer Servicing SWAT team. You'll be at the forefront of modernizing our core lease servicing platform, extracting critical business logic from legacy systems while building the foundation for our next-generation servicing architecture.

In this role, you'll architect and deliver modern microservices that handle high-volume daily payment processing, lease management, and customer servicing operations. As the Tech Lead, you'll balance hands-on development with technical leadership, mentoring engineers while driving the technical vision for decomposing our legacy .NET monolith into scalable, maintainable services using Golang and React.

You'll work with both legacy C# / .NET systems and modern cloud-native architectures, creating the bridge between our current state and future vision. We're looking for someone who embraces AI-assisted development to accelerate delivery while ensuring the reliability of systems that process significant daily transaction volumes. If you're passionate about modernizing critical financial infrastructure and thrive in a high-stakes fintech environment, this is the perfect opportunity for you!

Key Responsibilities :

Lead Legacy System Decomposition : Analyze, understand, and extract critical business logic from our C# / .NET RAIN monolith, designing modern microservices using Golang that maintain operational excellence during migration.

Architect Modern Services : Design and build new payment processing, lease management, and servicing APIs that serve as the foundation for next-generation servicing capabilities and automated customer support.

Lead High-Impact Team : Serve as the technical leader for a focused SWAT team, mentoring engineers, conducting code reviews, and ensuring adherence to best practices while managing mission-critical system transitions.

Build Bridge Architecture : Create backend-agnostic servicing interfaces and APIs that can seamlessly operate with both legacy systems and new services, enabling gradual migration without business disruption.

Ensure Payment System Reliability : Modernize and stabilize critical batch processing jobs that handle daily payment collection, ensuring high uptime for systems processing significant daily transaction volumes.

Enable Business Capabilities : Extract and modernize business logic to support new features like flexible promotional schedules, automated agent integration, and item-level tax calculations that drive significant revenue opportunities.

Technical Vision & Strategy : Collaborate with Architecture and Engineering Leadership to define the migration roadmap toward next-generation lease servicing systems while delivering immediate business value.

Implement Observability : Design robust monitoring, alerting, and observability frameworks for payment processing and lease servicing operations to ensure high availability and rapid issue resolution.

AI-Assisted Development : Leverage AI tools and practices to accelerate legacy code analysis, service extraction, and new feature development while maintaining code quality and system reliability.

Cross-System Integration : Work with Shared Tech and other product teams to integrate with event streaming, communications platforms, and shared services while maintaining backwards compatibility.

Risk Management : Lead incident response for payment processing systems and implement preventative measures to protect revenue-critical operations during modernization efforts.

Requirements :

5+ years of professional experience in systems development with experience modernizing or migrating legacy systems in production environments.

Proficiency in Golang : Strong experience developing backend services, APIs, and financial systems using Golang in production environments.

Legacy System Experience : Ability to read, understand, and analyze C# / .NET codebases to extract business logic and identify service boundaries in complex monoliths.

Leadership Experience : Previous experience in a technical lead or senior developer role, mentoring teams and leading architecture decisions in migration or modernization projects.

React / TypeScript Experience : Experience building frontend applications and customer-facing interfaces using React and TypeScript.

Cloud Experience : Strong familiarity with AWS services and cloud-native architectures, with experience in containerization and modern deployment practices.

API Design : Extensive experience designing and building RESTful APIs, particularly for financial or customer-facing systems with high reliability requirements.

Strong Testing Practices : Experience with automated testing strategies for both legacy system integration and new service development, including contract testing and data validation.

Migration Expertise : Experience with gradual system migrations, feature flags, and strategies for maintaining system availability during modernization efforts.

AI Development Enthusiasm : Interest in leveraging AI tools to accelerate legacy code analysis, service extraction, and development productivity.

Excellent Communication : Strong ability to collaborate with stakeholders while managing the complexity of legacy system modernization and business continuity requirements.

Problem-Solving Skills : Ability to troubleshoot complex financial systems issues and design resilient architectures that handle high-value transaction processing.

Preferred :

Financial Systems Background : Experience with payment processing, transaction systems, or financial service platforms, preferably in fintech, lending, or consumer financing domains.

Database Experience : Strong SQL skills and experience with relational databases; PostgreSQL experience preferred, MSSQL knowledge is a plus.

Event-Driven Architecture : Experience with event streaming, message queues, or pub / sub systems for building decoupled financial systems.

Regulatory Compliance : Understanding of financial regulations, data security, and compliance requirements in consumer financing.

Batch Processing Systems : Experience modernizing legacy batch jobs, schedulers, or high-volume transaction processing systems.

Database Migration : Experience with database modernization projects, particularly MSSQL to PostgreSQL migrations.

Location :

• Preferred : Richmond or Arlington, VA
• Exceptional remote candidates will be considered for the right fit

Education :

Ready to lead the modernization of mission-critical financial systems? Join us in transforming legacy infrastructure into scalable, modern services that power the future of lease-to-own financing while maintaining the reliability our customers depend on.

Why choose Koalafi : A career at Koalafi means opportunities to tackle exciting challenges every single day. We take pride in a culture of innovation, trust, and ownership. You'll get outside your comfort zone, build meaningful relationships, and most of all, take charge of projects that ultimately help people get the things they need most.

Benefits :

At Koalafi, you will have a direct impact on our products and help shape the company's success. We offer competitive compensation & benefits packages to keep you at your best :

Who we are & what we value :