Core Engineer - Backend and Full-Stack Development

Core Engineer — Core Engineering Team

Building the Intelligent Backbone of SME Finance

ABOUT THE ROLE

Zelo turns SME receivables into instant liquidity — real capital, real customers, real impact, across the UAE. We're past the experiment phase. We're building and scaling, and the core engineering team is where the platform actually gets built.

You'll design and ship the systems behind our credit, workflow, and integration engine — including Zelo Procure, our source-to-pay procurement ERP with financing embedded directly into the buying flow. What you ship this sprint can be mission-critical within weeks.

LOCATION

Abu Dhabi, UAE (In Office). Visa sponsorship and relocation support provided, for you and your family.

WHO WE WANT

We're not looking for someone we manage line-by-line. Give this person a one-line requirement and they'll run with it — research it, think it through, brainstorm with the team, and come back with a real solution, a draft, a point of view.

• Gets things done — designs it and ships it

• Thinks in systems: LLD, HLD, data flow, boundaries, trade-offs

• Has actually built products before, not just contributed to them

• Owns problems end-to-end — self-managed, no hand-holding needed

• Takes pride in their work and is genuinely into what they're building

• Bonus: comfortable in front of customers, not just behind a keyboard

WHAT YOU'LL ACTUALLY BUILD

• Core backend services in Java — credit workflows, document processing, financial ops

• React/TypeScript frontends that are fast, reliable, and stay out of the user's way

• Zelo Procure — the full source-to-pay flow: sourcing the market, requisitions, POs, supplier onboarding, drawdown, financing baked in end-to-end

• Event-driven workflows and state machines for gnarly, multi-step business logic

• AI/LLM-powered capabilities — document intelligence, classification, extraction, decisioning

• Pipelines into our Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse (Spark) — credit intelligence, analytics, reporting

• Schema evolution done right — Liquibase, hundreds of versioned changesets, zero room for "oops"

• UI data through our internal data-factory framework — paging, filtering, aggregation handled properly, not one-off endpoints

• Integrations with enterprise systems (SAP Ariba, Oracle Fusion, customer ERP/AP) and third-party APIs

Fast execution, real engineering discipline — not "move fast and break things."

TECH STACK

Java, React/TS, PostgreSQL with Liquibase, Azure (Functions, Service Bus, Event Grid, API Management, Logic Apps), Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse and Spark, event-driven architecture, state machines, Drools for rules and decisioning, n8n for internal automation, and Claude/LLM APIs woven into backend services.

SECURITY, AUDIT & COMPLIANCE

We move real money, so this isn't a checkbox:

• Auditability and authorization enforced on every endpoint

• Idempotent, immutable, fully audited external integration contracts

• Compliance is a design input, not a bolt-on

OUR CULTURE: "CONSCIOUS VIBE CODING"

Our codebase is large and mission-critical — exactly why we build with AI, intelligently:

• Claude, Cursor, and Copilot as daily tools, not novelties

• Prompt engineering treated as a real engineering skill

• Speed, code review, testing, and architectural discipline — together

• Systems other engineers can actually reason about

We move fast. We're just not reckless about it.

WHAT GETS YOU IN THE DOOR

• 3–6 years as a full-stack or backend-heavy engineer, Java + React in production

• Exceptional at LLD/HLD — you can zoom from "what does this button do" to "how does this hold up at 100x load"

• You've built or scaled something from tiny to juggernaut, and know what breaks along the way

• Comfortable with API design, data modeling, distributed systems

• Fiscalization / e-invoicing experience (UAE mandate, ZATCA/Saudi) is a strong plus — having built one puts you ahead

• Curious about AI and automation, even if you haven't touched every tool on this list

• You know the difference between fast, scalable, and maintainable — and when each one matters

WHY ZELO, WHY NOW

• PMF is done. $715M in capital allocation from our parent, IHC, is loaded and ready to deploy.

• Real customers, real revenue, real scale — not a lab experiment

• Your code ships this sprint, not next quarter

• No bureaucracy, no six layers of sign-off to get a decision

• You'll grow faster here than at any 200-person engineering org

Build the financial infrastructure a region runs its business on. That's the job.

HOW TO APPLY

Skip the cover letter. Record a 60–90 second pitch — video or voice note on why you're the right fit. Tell us about the hardest thing you've shipped, or what you'd do with a one-line spec and zero hand-holding.

Send it to [email protected].