At M-Pesa Africa, we are on a mission to become the number one FinTech company on the continent, and we are inviting a visionary and experienced Senior Infrastructure Architect to join our dynamic team. With over $1.2 billion exchanged daily through our platforms, our services power millions of lives and livelihoods across Africa. This is more than just a job—it’s an opportunity to architect the digital infrastructure of one of Africa’s largest and most impactful financial ecosystems.
As a Senior Infrastructure Architect, you will play a strategic role in leading the design, standardization, and modernization of M-Pesa’s infrastructure across cloud and on-premises environments. You will work in a high-velocity, high-volume, and high-availability ecosystem that demands robust, secure, and scalable digital foundations. This is a pivotal opportunity for a technical leader to influence platform transformation, cloud adoption, and zero-trust security enablement across multiple markets.
About the Role
The Senior Infrastructure Architect role resides within the M-Pesa Africa Architecture Team. It is central to enabling real-time, reliable, and secure financial transactions that support millions of users. You will be part of a larger agile environment guided by the SAFe framework, where cross-functional collaboration and continuous delivery are core tenets.
You will collaborate with platform teams, DevOps engineers, domain architects, SREs, and security professionals to ensure that infrastructure solutions meet current demands while remaining adaptable for future innovations. Your work will involve a mix of high-level architectural strategy and hands-on technical leadership.
Detailed Job Description
1. Infrastructure Architecture & Planning
As a leader in infrastructure planning, you will:
- Define and maintain target-state architecture across data centers, public and private clouds, and edge environments.
- Lead the roadmap for modernizing infrastructure platforms, focusing on virtualization, containerization, hyperconverged systems, and network overlays.
- Create and publish repeatable infrastructure patterns and blueprints covering compute, storage, disaster recovery, backup, and networking.
- Align infrastructure architecture with M-Pesa’s enterprise principles, business performance metrics, and SLA obligations.
2. Cloud and Hybrid Enablement
You will drive strategic cloud adoption and hybrid designs by:
- Spearheading hybrid and multi-cloud architecture strategies across AWS, Azure, and private clouds like OpenStack and VMware.
- Architecting secure and compliant Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) pipelines using tools like Terraform and Ansible.
- Leading the design of landing zones, VPC architectures, identity federation, and connectivity strategies across different cloud platforms.
- Embedding observability, scalability, and cost optimization principles into all cloud-native workloads.
3. Security, Resilience & Compliance
Security is fundamental at M-Pesa. You will:
- Apply security-by-design principles throughout the infrastructure lifecycle including encryption, segmentation, and zero-trust architectures.
- Design HA/DR solutions for mission-critical systems with a focus on geographic redundancy and failover preparedness.
- Ensure infrastructure compliance with regulations such as PCI-DSS, ISO 27001, and relevant local financial laws.
- Lead the preparation and remediation activities for infrastructure-related risk assessments and penetration testing.
4. Governance & Collaboration
Your role will require strong alignment and communication across teams:
- Participate actively in Architecture Review Boards to assess and refine architectural decisions.
- Engage closely with DevOps, SRE, and Security teams to promote infrastructure automation, observability, and performance tuning.
- Build strong partnerships with vendors, service providers, and technology partners to evaluate capabilities and suggest solutions.
- Maintain detailed and up-to-date documentation for infrastructure standards, deployment runbooks, and operational practices.
Technical Experience and Qualifications
This position requires a highly experienced infrastructure architect who combines deep technical knowledge with practical implementation expertise. The following are essential and desirable experiences for the role:
Essential Experience:
- A minimum of 8 years of experience in infrastructure or cloud architecture roles within high-availability environments.
- Comprehensive understanding and demonstrated experience with:
- Data center and cloud network architecture
- Virtualization platforms
- Hybrid cloud strategies
- Infrastructure-as-Code tools (Terraform, Ansible)
- CI/CD integration with infrastructure observability solutions
- Platform engineering, including service mesh and secure enclave deployments
- Proven expertise in:
- Multi-cloud architecture (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- Kubernetes orchestration and deployment
- PaaS and IaaS models
- Regulatory frameworks such as PCI-DSS, GDPR, and ISO 27001
- Strong grasp of:
- Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA)
- Identity protocols including OAuth2, OpenID, and SAML
- Encryption technologies and enterprise-grade security practices
Desirable Skills:
- Operational experience with Kubernetes cluster management and scaling.
- Integration of observability tools like Datadog, Prometheus, and Splunk.
- Familiarity with edge computing, content delivery networks (CDNs), and backend scaling for mobile apps.
- Relevant cloud certifications such as:
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect
- Microsoft Azure Architect Expert
- Understanding of automated delivery pipelines and CI/CD workflows.
- Interest in fintech trends and innovations including new payment protocols and supplier ecosystems.
- Ability to translate architectural policies into tangible infrastructure solutions.
- Involvement in vendor evaluation, proof of concept delivery, and technical due diligence.
Educational & Professional Requirements:
- A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Network Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent experience).
- 8+ years of progressive technical experience with a concentration on infrastructure architecture and systems engineering.
- Prior experience in financial services or fintech industries will be a significant advantage.
- Knowledge of both Agile and traditional Waterfall delivery methodologies.
About M-Pesa Africa
M-Pesa is more than just a mobile money service—it is a digital financial platform that has revolutionized how people access and manage money in Africa. As the leading telecommunications company in East Africa, we play a transformative role by connecting individuals to opportunities, jobs, markets, and each other.
Currently, we support over 42 million customers and over a million jobs, either directly or indirectly. Our operations are deeply woven into the socio-economic fabric of Africa. For the financial year ending March 2021, we generated an estimated economic value of KES 362 billion ($3.2 billion). We are also a public company listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, with revenues totaling nearly KES 298 billion ($2.5 billion) as of March 2022.
Since our inception in 1997, M-Pesa has pioneered mobile financial services and continues to innovate under the guidance of industry visionaries and robust global partnerships. Our history of innovation includes the introduction of mobile money in 2007, a disruptive leap that transformed how financial services are delivered across the continent.
Position Details
- Job Title: Senior Infrastructure Architect
- Job Location: PO BOX 46350, Nairobi, Kenya
- Job Category: Information Technology
- Job Schedule: Full-time
- Degree Level Required: Bachelor’s Degree
- Job ID: 743
- Posting Date: 16 June 2025
- Application Deadline: 23 June 2025 at 09:00
Why Join Us?
Joining M-Pesa Africa means you will:
- Play a crucial role in building infrastructure that powers Africa’s leading digital financial platform.
- Work in a collaborative, agile, and innovative environment where your ideas and solutions will impact millions.
- Be part of a purpose-driven organization committed to economic empowerment, financial inclusion, and technological progress.
- Enjoy access to continuous learning, cutting-edge tools, and cross-border projects that enrich your professional development.
Application Instructions
Applications are currently open until 23 June 2025, 09:00 EAT. We welcome all experienced and passionate infrastructure professionals to apply and be part of our groundbreaking team.
