How you'll help us achieve it

Wave is now the largest financial institution in Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire, with millions of users, growing rapidly year-on-year. And, we’re still in the early days of our product roadmap and potential impact on people’s everyday lives.

We’re looking for an experienced security engineer who’s independent, excited about getting things done, and ready to hit the ground running. You'll primarily be responsible for our application security, working with our product teams to work on new systems to enhance our security posture. Our customers trust us with their money, and you’ll be at the forefront of making sure we retain that trust!

This broadly scoped role will allow you to get your hands on many different types of security projects, from direct application security to helping our infrastructure team think about security for our databases. 

Some experience with common industry certifications like ISO-27001 and PCI-DSS would be beneficial, although you won’t be expected to run or oversee audits.

Our to-do list changes constantly, but here are some recent projects and activities:

• Centralise application-level login and permissions enforcement
• Configure and utilise external SIEM solutions to monitor our infrastructure
• Help us increase our posture around secret management
• Security review of our public-facing APIs
• Partner with teams across Wave to define secure guardrails, supporting investigations and incident response
• Work with our IT Team to fix any non-conformities found during audits by central banks and ISO certification

Our stack (prior experience is a strong plus, but not required):

• backend: Python 3 (+ mypy)
• API layer: GraphQL
• android frontend: Kotlin/Jetpack
• iOS frontend: Swift/SwiftUI
• web frontend: TypeScript/React
• database: Postgres/CockroachDB
• infrastructure: GCP/Terraform
• orchestration: Kubernetes

Key Details

• This is a fully remote role. Candidates must be based in one of our talent hub countries (UK, Spain, Kenya and Ghana) or in one of our operating markets in Africa including Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, or Burkina Faso.
• Wave provides a yearly $1,200 stipend to support coworking meetups with teammates.
• Remote team members are expected to travel to our operational markets (e.g. Senegal or Côte d'Ivoire) at least once a year. Exceptions apply, but we’ve found this key to understanding our users and product.
• Our salaries are competitive and are calculated using a transparent formula. For this role, depending on your level and location, we offer a salary of up to $227,900 USD, plus a generous equity package.
• Major benefits:
  • Subsidized health insurance for you and your dependents and retirement contributions (both vary from country to country).
  • 6 months of fully paid parental leave and subsidized fertility assistance.
  • Flexible vacation, with most folks taking between 21-30 days exclusive of statutory holidays.
  • $10,000 annual charitable donation matching.

Requirements

• Minimum of 5 years of professional experience with a minimum of 2 years of it spent in a security-related role.
• Strong Experience with Python.
• Fluent English.

You might be a good fit if you

• Are excited about finding the right balance between security and velocity. 
• Push through hard problems without giving up.
• Have experience remediating non-conformities.
• Enjoy helping other engineers understand and implement secure patterns.
• Are not afraid to take on complicated systems.
• Are excited to work on lots of different security-related work, from audits to code refactors. 
• Work to make things easier for the next engineer who will touch your code.
• Always try to improve as a programmer and colleague.
• Are interested in security-focused source code review and penetration testing.
• Have an interest in growing and mentoring a team.

About engineering at Wave

We care about the big picture. We don’t hire engineers to just ship tickets. We hire them to solve problems. That means caring deeply about outcomes, understanding context, and jumping in wherever something’s broken, even if it’s technically “not your area.” When we see problems, inefficiencies, or opportunities to make something better, we act. We dig into operational issues, clarify fuzzy product specs, or step into unfamiliar code to help unblock teammates.

We move as fast as possible. Speed matters. It lets us try things quickly, get feedback early, and course-correct while it’s cheap. So we write small PRs. We aim for MVPs. We leave TODOs and file follow-ups. We don’t over-perfect v1. That said, we’re building a financial product. Some things—like money movement, correctness, or security—deserve more caution.

We like boring technology. We favor tools that are reliable, well-understood, and easy to debug. This keeps us focused on solving meaningful problems instead of wrestling with unpredictable infrastructure. If a new technology helps us move faster, build safer, or solve a real need, we’ll consider it. But we don’t adopt tools just because they’re new—we adopt them because they’re right.

Simplicity is a strategy. It lets us focus our energy where it matters most: serving our users.

#LI-DH1 #LI-REMOTE

About this job

As a Security Engineer you will form part of JUMO’s dedicated Security Team. Our mission is to raise JUMO's overall security posture, by identifying security issues and helping teams to understand and address them. 

JUMO’s tech stack runs in AWS and includes AWS EKS, Terraform, microservices written in Kotlin, Datadog and CI/CD based on Github Actions and ArgoCD. As a Security Engineer you will need to be familiar with these systems, as well as specific security tooling such as various AWS-based security tools (Security Hub, GuardDuty, AWS WAF, etc), Okta, Semgrep, CrowdStrike EDR, Mimecast, FleetDM and more. 

You will report into the Head of Security.

You will 

• Help to discover and triage vulnerabilities from various sources.
• Design, configure, deploy, and maintain secure configurations across JUMO’s cloud and endpoint estate.
• Work with engineering teams to complete threat modeling exercises.
• Work with teams across JUMO to improve the SDLC and help secure the systems they are responsible for.
• Write code to automate tasks and integrate it with other products and integrations.
• Implement and improve security observability.
• Respond to, document and automate incident responses.
• Help secure JUMO’s use of AI tooling.
• Proactively seek ways to improve existing processes and systems related to incidents, vulnerabilities, security control systems, and risks.
• Coach, mentor, and share knowledge within the team.

You will need

• 3+ years of information security experience.
• Experience in a security implementation and operations environment.
• Good foundational programming experience, in a modern language such as Python, as well as Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform).
• Experience with cloud services such as cloud providers, SSO, cloud email gateways, cloud productivity suites.
• Ability to build relationships and work effectively with other teams.
• Ability to effectively prioritize tasks and take initiative.
• A keen eye to identify process constraints and find solutions to alleviate these.
• Ability to work independently and be comfortable with responsibility.

Bonus if you have 

• Stronger coding experience. For example, you can write code that interacts with a set of APIs, transforms the data, stores it in a database, and pushes it to another API.

We ask a lot of each other at JUMO, but we give a lot too. 

You will love

• Collaborating with smart, engaging people in an inspiring work environment
• Working as one team towards our goal of financial inclusion
• Growing and learning continuously, with loads of encouragement and support
• Boldly taking risks as we navigate new challenges
• Flexible work practices enabling your best delivery
• Being autonomous and empowered to lead

• A stack of leading-edge technologies 

Remote First

This position is based remotely in any country between UTC+0 and UTC+3 timezones.  We operate a remote first working approach, where working remotely is our default way of working.  Our environment is designed to foster innovation and enable collaboration. You have flexibility where to work from, as long as you are set up to work remotely and have access to data with a strong and reliable connection as we value online facetime for collaboration at JUMO.

Diversity and Inclusion

At JUMO, we firmly believe that diversity strengthens our teams. We are dedicated to fostering an inclusive recruitment process that cultivates an environment where all individuals can be authentic, collaborate, and thrive.

About Sand

Sand Technologies is a global Physical AI company using data and AI to make critical industries work better. We partner with governments, cities and enterprises to improve how essential systems operate across healthcare, water, energy, telecommunications and infrastructure.

Our work delivers proven real-world impact. We have built AI systems that help manage London’s water supply, supported telecom network planning across hundreds of cities, and developed digital healthcare platforms serving tens of millions of people across Africa. From intelligent command centers to AI-powered infrastructure platforms, we help organizations sense, analyze and act in complex environments.

Our people are ambitious, curious and relentlessly practical. Our teams work alongside clients in the field, solving hard problems and deploying solutions that last. With colleagues across Africa, Europe, the UK and the US, we operate across the full stack - from research and engineering to deployment and capability building.

Our mission is simple: to harness AI to solve humanity’s most pressing challenges.

About the role

Sand is scaling rapidly across Africa, partnering with Ministries of Health to deploy the Health Operating System (HOS) — a decision-support and execution platform that transforms how health systems sense, analyze, and act on data. The HOS is already operational across multiple countries, with plans to expand to 15 countries by end of 2026, supported by 80+ Forward Deployed Engineers.

As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you are the technical spearhead of our client engagement in Kenya. Unlike our roaming FDE roles, this is a permanently embedded position. You will be based full-time within the Ministry of Health in Kenya, becoming a long-term extension of the client's operational team. Your mandate is to build deep institutional relationships, develop comprehensive understanding of the national health system, and deliver sustained value over an extended engagement — not just rapid sprints, but lasting transformation.

This is not staff augmentation. You are an amalgamation of three roles:

1. The Software Engineer — Deep technical acumen to build and deploy production-grade solutions using Sand's product suite
2. The Product Manager — Strategic foresight to understand client problems, influence business objectives, and identify expansion opportunities
3. The Consultant — Client-facing finesse to navigate complex stakeholder relationships, manage scope, and transfer knowledge

Your primary mission is to prove our value fast, delivering functional solutions rapidly using Sand's products, playbooks, and tools, and then maturing those solutions into mission-critical infrastructure that the Ministry depends on daily. Over time, you become the institutional memory of the deployment — the person who understands the data landscape, the stakeholder dynamics, and the operational realities better than anyone.

Who We're Looking For

The Forward Deployed Engineer is a highly ambitious individual. You are someone who is deeply keen on learning — someone who dives in headfirst to solve some of the hardest, most complex problems in global health. You thrive on understanding the technology, understanding the stakeholders, understanding our product suite, and weaving all three together to deliver solutions that change how health systems operate.

This role is not for someone looking for comfort or routine. It is for someone who wants to step outside of their comfort zone, build something they can be proud of, and grow faster than they thought possible. The FDE programme is a career accelerator — an intensive rotation that exposes you to technical depth, strategic thinking, and client leadership in equal measure, all while working on problems that matter for millions of people.

For this permanently embedded role, you also need the maturity and resilience to sustain deep client relationships over months and years — not just weeks. You will become the face of Sand in Malawi, and that requires patience, cultural fluency, and the ability to navigate institutional complexity while maintaining momentum.

Key Responsibilities

Serve as Sand's Permanent Technical Presence in Kenya

• Embed full-time within the Ministry of Health, becoming a trusted member of the client's extended team
• Develop deep, longitudinal understanding of the national health data landscape, institutional dynamics, and operational priorities
• Build and maintain relationships across all levels of the Ministry — from frontline data officers to senior leadership
• Act as the primary technical point of contact for all Sand activities in-country, coordinating with launchers, country directors, and visiting FDE teams

Drive On-Site Value Delivery

• Rapidly unlock, explore, and integrate client data sources (e.g., DHIS2, SCADA systems, network management platforms, operational databases)
• Understand client problems through prototyping and rapid value delivery — deploying POCs and MVPs using Sand's product components and playbooks
• Transition initial solutions into hardened, production-grade systems that the Ministry relies on daily
• Own the long-term health of deployed solutions — monitoring adoption, troubleshooting issues, and iterating based on user feedback
• Deliver and track value generated through deployment of Sand products

Enable Product-Led Growth

• Lead with Sand's existing product suite — know the products by heart and where each solution is most effective for the domain you're deployed in
• Document learnings, client challenges, and successful solutions as reusable patterns for the broader FDE community
• Drive discovery and expansion by uncovering new opportunities on the ground

Build Local Capacity and Sustainability

• Work alongside Ministry teams to co-create solutions and progressively transfer knowledge, ensuring they can operate and maintain systems independently
• Identify, recruit, and mentor local data engineers, scientists, and analysts to build sustainable in-country capacity
• Develop training materials and documentation tailored to the local context, language, and skill level
• Be the continuity that ensures handover isn't a cliff — you bridge the gap between Sand's deployment and the Ministry's long-term ownership

Feed the Platform Feedback Loop

• Channel field learnings back to improve the core product through structured mechanisms (Technical Deep Dives, Solution Swarms, pattern documentation)
• Turn "gravel roads" into "paved superhighways" — document solution patterns so the next FDE can move faster
• Contribute field feedback that influences 30% of the product roadmap

Requirements — Essential

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related technical field
• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, data science, system deployment, or technical leadership
• Proficiency in at least one of: Python, SQL/PostgreSQL, JavaScript — with ability to write production-grade code
• Strong problem-solving skills with a bias toward action and rapid prototyping
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills — comfortable presenting to senior government or corporate stakeholders and translating between technical and non-technical audiences
• Experience working with or deploying to government, public sector, or large institutional clients
• Proven ability to lead local technical teams and build capacity
• Willingness to relocate and be permanently based in Kenya for the duration of the engagement (12-24+ months)
• Language: Local language proficiency is a significant advantage

Requirements — Preferred

• Experience with data integration, ETL pipelines, and working with diverse data sources
• Experience in one or more of Sand's focus domains: health informatics/digital health, water utility operations, telecommunications network operations, or energy systems
• Familiarity with domain-specific platforms (e.g., DHIS2, OpenMRS for health; SCADA, GIS for water/energy; OSS/BSS for telecom)
• Experience with BI and dashboarding tools, particularly Apache Superset
• Experience with data transformation tools such as dbt or Airflow
• Comfort working with data dictionaries, reporting requirements, and identifying common data quality issues
• Knowledge of data security, privacy, and interoperability standards (e.g., FHIR for healthcare, GDPR, local data sovereignty requirements)
• Experience operating in resource-constrained environments (unreliable power, limited connectivity)

Work Environment

This is a permanently embedded role. You will work on-site at the Ministry of Health in Kenya 4 days per week, with 1 day for focused remote work, internal collaboration, and knowledge sharing with the broader FDE community. You should expect to be based in Kenya for a minimum of 12-24 months.

You must be self-driven, comfortable operating as Sand's primary technical representative in-country, and disciplined with online collaboration tools to stay connected with the broader Sand team across geographies. Cultural sensitivity, adaptability, and genuine interest in the local context are essential — you are not passing through, you are putting down roots.