TL;DR
- Strengthen backend platforms critical to onboarding participants into Malaysia's payment ecosystem
- Scale and stabilize systems as onboarding volumes, complexity, and integration demands increase
- Reduce long-term operational and performance risk through better backend architecture and design
- Own backend decisions that directly affect platform reliability, security, and partner experience
Why This Role Matters
- Backend systems directly impact the reliability and scalability of national payment onboarding
- Poor architectural decisions create long-term operational risk and rework
- Senior engineers set the technical bar for quality, performance, and security
- Strong backend ownership enables faster delivery without compromising stability
- A senior who can operate independently frees leads/architects to focus on cross-team and strategic problems
What You Will Actually Do
- Take a problem statement (not a spec) and independently research, propose, and defend a technical solution — including trade-off analysis, not just implementation
- Design and lead architecture for scalable, high-performance backend systems, from first principles where needed
- Own end-to-end delivery: design → build → test → deploy → post-release stability, with minimal supervision once direction is aligned
- Proactively flag architectural or scalability risks before they become production incidents, rather than waiting to be asked
- Develop and maintain backend services and RESTful APIs using Java, Golang, or Python
- Design and optimize database schemas and queries to ensure performance and data integrity
- Write unit and integration tests as a default part of delivery, not an afterthought
- Troubleshoot complex production issues and drive root-cause analysis through to permanent fixes
- Set and enforce code review standards (PR size, test coverage expectations, security checks, documentation)
- Review peers' and juniors' code with a bias toward teaching — explain the "why," not just flag the "what"
- Champion CI/CD, branching, and release discipline appropriate to a national payment system (audit trail, rollback safety, change management)
- Adapt quickly to the team's existing tooling, workflows, and review culture — able to plug into an established process within the first few weeks rather than needing it re-explained repeatedly
Examples of This Role in Practice
- Given only "onboarding is timing out under load," independently profiles the system, identifies the bottleneck, and ships a fix — without needing the root cause pre-diagnosed for them
- Refactoring database queries to remove performance bottlenecks before they're flagged by monitoring
- Leading code reviews that catch security or reliability issues before merge, and using the review as a teaching moment for the author
- Owning a critical production incident end-to-end: triage, root cause analysis, fix, and postmortem write-up
- Spending 3–5 hours a week (not just "when there's time") on pairing or reviewing with junior engineers
- Adapting within the first sprint or two to the team's existing Git workflow, review cadence, and definition-of-done — asking sharp clarifying questions rather than needing repeated onboarding
What Will Help You Succeed
Required
- 5+ years of backend engineering experience, with strong proficiency in Java/Spring Boot (Golang or Python a plus)
- Proven track record of end-to-end ownership: design, troubleshooting, structured problem analysis, and unit testing
- Proven experience building RESTful APIs and scalable backend systems
- Solid understanding of relational databases, SQL, and performance optimization
- Strong, structured problem-solving ability — can walk through how they diagnose an issue, not just state the fix
- Experience mentoring engineers in a hands-on, ongoing capacity, and working in Agile environments
Helpful
- Experience across multiple backend languages or frameworks (e.g., Golang, Node.js)
- Exposure to microservices and distributed systems architecture (event‑driven design, sagas, service boundaries)
- Experience integrating third‑party APIs and external services
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation
- Knowledge of backend security best practices (authentication, authorization, data protection) especially relevant in a payments context
- Experience with monitoring, logging, and performance tuning tools
- Prior experience in fintech, payments, or other regulated/high‑availability environments
Embark on an exciting career journey with Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PayNet), the heartbeat of Malaysia's financial markets!
As the national payments network and a pivotal infrastructure for Malaysia’s dynamic financial markets, PayNet is a linchpin in advancing the nation’s digital economy.
Our comprehensive suite of retail payment solutions - encompassing DuitNow (QR and P2P), JomPAY (Bill Payments), FPX (Online), MyDebit (Domestic Debit), MEPS (ATM), and IBG (Interbank GIRO) - not only offer wide accessibility but are seamlessly integrated into the fabric of daily life in Malaysia. These services have revolutionised the way Malaysians handle financial transactions, marking a significant leap in consumer convenience and efficiency.
At PayNet, our focus is on providing a safe, efficient, and innovative payments system. We are dedicated to improving and managing payment services that meet the evolving needs of consumers and businesses. Our work ensures the stability and reliability of Malaysia’s financial system, supporting the growth of the economy.
Learn more about our work and how we are contributing to Malaysia's financial future at www.paynet.my.
Join us in embracing digital payments and advancing Malaysia's financial landscape.