Raising The Village International (RTV) is a Canadian non-profit organization focused on ending extreme poverty by eliminating immediate barriers of scarcity, nurturing income-generation activities and building local capacity, while moving communities toward economic self-sufficiency. Raising The Village is a fast-growing organization on an accelerated growth path. Our East Africa and North American teams work together to lift communities out of ultra-poverty in last-mile villages. We operate at the intersection of direct implementation and advanced data analytics to inform progress, decision-making, and impact.

Job Summary: The Software Engineer – Backend plays a key role in the design, development, optimization, and maintenance of back-end infrastructure and services for web and mobile applications across RTV’s digital ecosystem. He or She works closely with Frontend Engineers, UI/UX Engineers, Quality Assurance Engineers, DevOps Engineers, and Product managers to deliver intuitive, scalable, and

secure systems that directly support our mission to end ultra-poverty.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Backend Development

Develop and maintain scalable backend services and APIs using PHP Laravel and Node.js.
Build and maintain RESTful and GraphQL endpoints for seamless integration across platforms.
Optimize application performance across the stack for speed, scalability, and responsiveness.

Architecture & System Design

Collaborate on overall system architecture with focus on maintainability, modularity, and reusability.
Work within microservices architecture and contribute to service decomposition, containerization, and API-driven integration.
Support cloud infrastructure planning and automation (AWS, Terraform, CI/CD).

Database Management:

Design and optimize database schemas, queries, and indexing for efficient data retrieval.
Implement database solutions (SQL, NoSQL) that meet application requirements.
Ensure data consistency, availability, and reliability.

Security and Compliance:

Implement security best practices to protect data and systems.
Ensure compliance with industry standards and regulations related to data privacy and security.

Documentation & Team Collaboration

Write clear and maintainable documentation for code, architecture, API endpoints, and workflows.
Engage in daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, and product planning cycles.
Provide technical mentorship and peer support where relevant.

User & Technical Support

Provide second-level technical support for issues escalated from users/clients.
Troubleshoot user-reported bugs, performance issues, and integration concerns in collaboration with QA and DevOps teams.
Support user onboarding, prepare technical documentation, and develop usage guides and training materials.
Collect, analyze, and integrate user feedback into the development lifecycle to improve system usability and performance.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering.
4+ years of backend development experience with a proven portfolio of applications.
Proficiency in:
PHP Laravel, Express.js (Node.js) for backend development.
Microservices architecture, including containerization with Docker and Kubernetes.
RESTful and GraphQL API design and implementation.
Cloud platforms, specifically AWS, for deployments and infrastructure management.
Database management (SQL and NoSQL) and query optimization.
DevOps tools and CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD).
Familiarity with Object oriented programing and asynchronous programming, authentication protocols, and secure coding practices.

Personal Attributes