Backend Engineer

Department: Technology and Product

Reports to: Technology Lead

About MDaaS

MDaaS Global is a healthtech company reimagining how diagnostic healthcare is delivered across Africa. We combine technology, medical equipment expertise and operational excellence to build and run diagnostic centres that are modern, efficient and affordable, bringing quality care closer to the communities that need it.

We're a mission-driven team working across clinical operations, technology, finance, commercial, people and strategy, united by the belief that where you live shouldn't determine the quality of care you receive.

About the Role

We are hiring our first in-house Backend Engineer to own the systems that power MDaaS’ diagnostic network.

Our technology connects our centres, teams and patients. It supports how we register patients, manage diagnostic workflows, deliver results and run operations. As we bring development in-house, you will take ownership of the services, APIs and data behind these products, keeping them reliable, secure and ready to scale. You will also set the technical foundations the team will build on for years to come.

At the start, you will be the only backend engineer. You’ll work closely with the Tech Lead, the Product and DevOps Lead, and the frontend team, and your early decisions on architecture, standards and tooling will shape how we build. Because we handle sensitive health information, keeping patient data secure and compliant will be central to your work.

Our Technology Stack

• Backend: Node.js (TypeScript and JavaScript)

• Front end: React.js (TypeScript and JavaScript)

• Databases: PostgreSQL and Firebase Realtime Database

• Infrastructure: Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

What You’ll Do

Ownership and Technical Foundations

• Own the backend services, APIs and databases behind several production healthcare products.

• Review the existing codebases and documentation, then identify, prioritise and reduce technical debt, separating what is critical from what can wait.

• Define and document backend architecture, coding standards and engineering practices for the team.

• Review code and mentor junior engineers.

Build and Integrate

• Design and build new backend features and services with the product, design and frontend teams.

• Build and maintain integrations with internal systems, third-party services and data pipelines, including our BigQuery analytics environment.

• Design systems that work under real conditions in our clinics, including unreliable connectivity.

Data

• Maintain and improve our PostgreSQL schemas and Firebase Realtime Database structures, including security rules.

• Plan and carry out migrations where the data model needs to change.

Infrastructure and Reliability

• Manage services on GCP, including deployments, CI/CD, secrets, access control and cost.

• Set up monitoring, alerting, logging and incident response so production issues are found and fixed quickly.

• Help triage and resolve backend bugs and support escalations.

Security and Compliance

• Build with security and patient data protection in mind, in line with NDPR and NDPA requirements.

• Work with external compliance advisors where needed.

What We’re Looking For

Required Skills & Experience

• 5-8 years of professional experience building and running backend systems in production, including at least 2 to 3 years owning a production system end to end (deployments, on-call, incidents).

• Strong proficiency in Node.js with TypeScript, including building and maintaining APIs and services.

• Solid experience with PostgreSQL: schema design, indexing, query optimisation and safe migrations.

• Working experience with Firebase Realtime Database or a comparable real-time NoSQL database, including data modelling and access rules.

• Hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform (for example Cloud Run or Compute Engine, Cloud SQL, IAM, logging) and CI/CD pipelines.

• Experience designing REST APIs, and a sound grasp of authentication, authorisation and handling sensitive data.

• Experience taking over, auditing or refactoring a codebase you did not write.

• Clear written communication, including technical documentation and explaining trade-offs to non-engineers.

• Comfort working independently as the only backend engineer, with strong ownership of your work.

Preferred

• Working knowledge of React.js and TypeScript, enough to agree API contracts and debug integration issues with the front-end team.

• Experience with BigQuery and data pipelines on GCP.

• Experience in healthtech or another regulated domain, and familiarity with HL7/FHIR, NDPR or NDPA.

• Experience with offline-first or sync-heavy architectures.

• Experience with observability and incident tooling such as New Relic, Grafana or PagerDuty.

• Experience integrating AI or LLM services into production applications.

What Success Looks Like

First 30 days: You understand our products and infrastructure, have met the product, design and DevOps leads, and have started a review of the backend codebases.

First 90 days: You have delivered a prioritised technical debt plan and a recommended backend architecture direction, and you own backend delivery on at least one product.

First 6 months: You are the owner of backend reliability and quality, with documented standards and monitoring in place across core products.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary

• Hybrid working

• Health insurance (HMO)

• Complimentary health services at our diagnostic centres

• Pension contributions

• Paid annual leave and sick leave

• Learning and professional development opportunities

Questions

If you have any questions about this role or any others at the company, please reach out to careers@mdaas.io.

Equal Opportunity

MDaaS Global is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to ethnic group, place of origin, sex, religion, political opinion, marital status, age, or disability. We are committed to building a team that reflects the communities we serve, and we make reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities throughout our hiring process.

If you need an accommodation to apply or interview, please contact careers@mdaas.io.