One Acre Fund, a mission-driven non-profit organization founded in 2006, has built a transformational agricultural model that directly benefits over 5.5 million smallholder farmers across Africa. Operating in nine countries that house two-thirds of the continent’s farming population, One Acre Fund delivers vital agricultural inputs such as high-quality farm supplies, tree seedlings, agronomic training, and microcredit, all aimed at helping farmers increase their yields, boost their incomes, and improve their resilience.
By leveraging technology, the organization empowers field staff and farmers alike to interact seamlessly, receive timely updates, place input orders, and manage critical data across a vast geographical scope. This is where the role of a Senior DevOps Engineer becomes critical. As One Acre Fund continues scaling its technology-driven solutions, the DevOps team is essential in ensuring infrastructure stability, deployment efficiency, and a seamless operational experience for all technology users in the organization.
Currently, One Acre Fund is looking for a highly motivated, technically skilled, and impact-oriented Senior DevOps Engineer to join its growing development team. The position is available in both Nairobi, Kenya and Kigali, Rwanda.
About One Acre Fund
With a full-time staff exceeding 9,000 professionals, One Acre Fund draws on a highly diverse workforce united by a common goal: transforming agriculture to better serve smallholder farmers. The organization achieves this by offering a comprehensive support model that combines accessible credit, scalable technology, and modern farming practices.
Through its investments in digital tools and robust platforms, One Acre Fund not only improves operational efficiency but also accelerates its reach and depth of impact. If you’re a technology enthusiast with a passion for development and service, joining this team means becoming part of a larger mission to sustainably uplift millions of farmers across Africa.
To understand more about the organizational culture and values, you can explore One Acre Fund’s Why Work Here blog post, which gives insight into how the organization fosters innovation, learning, and inclusivity.
Position Overview: Senior DevOps Engineer
The Senior DevOps Engineer will be embedded within a team of passionate and experienced developers, working to manage, optimize, and scale a portfolio of web and mobile applications that serve millions of farmers and support thousands of internal staff.
From streamlining farmer registrations and processing digital orders to optimizing logistics for farm input delivery and processing mobile payments, the systems you’ll support are integral to the functioning of One Acre Fund’s field operations. The role is full-time and reports directly to the DevOps Manager.
Key Responsibilities
1. Operations and Application Management
- You will oversee the operation of a dozen core applications that form the digital backbone of One Acre Fund’s services to farmers. These applications are containerized, currently running across ~200 containers.
- Ensure continuous uptime, security, and performance of systems by implementing best practices in monitoring and resource management.
- Manage the container orchestration environment based on Kubernetes, ensuring optimal performance, scaling, and high availability.
2. Infrastructure Automation and Maintenance
- Administer and automate the infrastructure hosted primarily on Microsoft Azure, but also with elements on Elasticsearch and CouchBase.
- Continuously improve infrastructure-as-code practices, using automation tools to maintain consistency, repeatability, and scalability of environments.
- Implement regular system backups, disaster recovery plans, and rollback protocols to ensure high system availability.
3. Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD)
- Develop and maintain a robust CI/CD pipeline using tools such as GitHub Actions and ArgoCD.
- Reduce time-to-deployment and improve developer productivity by streamlining code integration, build processes, testing protocols, and deployment workflows.
- Collaborate with software engineers to optimize development processes from code commit through to production deployment.
4. Toolchain Management and Developer Support
- Manage a suite of development tools including GitHub, JIRA, Slack, and Azure DevOps, ensuring seamless integration and developer enablement.
- Develop and maintain documentation and onboarding guides for the DevOps toolchain.
- Offer guidance and support to developers on infrastructure and deployment-related queries and issues.
5. Architectural Strategy and System Design
- Actively participate in architectural reviews and technical strategy sessions.
- Influence key decisions regarding system design, cloud-native architecture, and scalable infrastructure solutions that align with organizational growth and technological innovation.
- Evaluate new technologies and recommend best-fit solutions for long-term operational goals.
6. Monitoring, Logging, and Performance Visibility
- Set up and manage logging, alerting, and monitoring tools using the ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana).
- Establish real-time visibility into the performance of services, enabling fast identification and resolution of bottlenecks or system failures.
- Collaborate with relevant teams to improve application observability, automate reporting, and ensure system health.
Qualifications and Technical Skills
For this role, the following skills and qualifications are essential:
- Minimum 5 years of experience in software development, with at least 3 years in DevOps or system administration.
- Deep expertise in containerization technologies, particularly Docker and Kubernetes.
- Hands-on experience with CI/CD tools, especially GitHub Actions or ArgoCD.
- Strong background in cloud infrastructure, preferably on Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services (AWS).
- Proficiency in scripting languages, with BASH preferred. Powershell or CMD scripting is also acceptable.
- Solid understanding of software development frameworks and programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, C#, and SQL.
- Experience working with logging and alerting tools (e.g., ELK Stack) for full-stack performance monitoring.
- Demonstrated ability to manage and scale distributed systems and maintain performance under growing workloads.
Preferred Start Date
The successful candidate should be prepared to begin as soon as possible, as the organization is keen to continue building upon its technological foundations and support its growing farmer base.
Location
This position is based at either of One Acre Fund’s key regional offices:
- Nairobi, Kenya
- Kigali, Rwanda
One Acre Fund is able to support a work permit for international candidates. However, preference will be given to nationals of the organization’s countries of operation or candidates with significant professional experience in these countries.
Benefits and Compensation
The successful applicant will receive a competitive remuneration package that includes:
- Health Insurance: Comprehensive health coverage for medical, dental, and vision needs.
- Housing Support: Depending on location, housing benefits may be included as part of the compensation package.
- Professional Development: Regular mentorship, training sessions, access to learning resources, and career growth reviews every six months.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
One Acre Fund is deeply committed to fostering a workplace culture that upholds diversity, equity, and inclusion as core values. The organization actively works to ensure every team member feels valued, respected, and supported, regardless of background, gender, nationality, race, religion, or personal identity.
Its DEI framework is designed to create pathways for career growth, collaborative innovation, and equitable representation in decision-making across all levels of the organization. Anti-racism is a fundamental part of this commitment, and the organization seeks to build inclusive systems that serve not only staff but also the millions of smallholder farmers it partners with.
Important Notice on Recruitment Integrity
Candidates should note the following:
- No fees or payments are required at any stage of the application process.
- All legitimate correspondence from One Acre Fund will come from an @oneacrefund.org email address.
- If you receive any suspicious communications or are asked for money during the hiring process, report immediately to: [email protected]. However, do not send your application to this email address.
Application Deadline
Applications are open until 8 October 2025, but please note that One Acre Fund reviews applications on a rolling basis. Early applications are encouraged, as the role may be filled before the deadline once a suitable candidate is identified.
Conclusion
The role of Senior DevOps Engineer at One Acre Fund is an outstanding opportunity to drive digital transformation at the grassroots level, directly influencing how technology can be used to serve millions of farmers. It is a dynamic position that calls for technical expertise, problem-solving skills, a strong sense of mission, and the desire to contribute meaningfully to rural agricultural development in Africa.
Whether your strengths lie in cloud infrastructure, automation, scripting, or team collaboration, your contribution as a Senior DevOps Engineer will be pivotal in helping One Acre Fund scale its impact and achieve its mission of building a prosperous future for African farmers.
If you’re ready to join a purpose-driven team and bring your skills to one of Africa’s most ambitious agricultural initiatives, this is the role for you.
