The Mission (Why This Role Matters)
At Zelo, we're building the future of SME financingtransforming receivables into instant liquidity for businesses across the UAE. We are past the experimentation phase and firmly in execution and scale mode.
This role sits at the heart of our core engineering team, where you will design, build, and evolve the systems that power our credit, workflow, and integration engine. These are not disposable experiments. This is production-grade engineeringmoving fast, with rigorsupporting real customers, real capital flows, and real financial decisions.
Location
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (In Office)
The Role (Your Impact Zone)
We are looking for a Full Stack Engineer to join our Core Engineering Team. This is not a growth hacking or experimentation role. You will work in structured sprints, collaborate closely with Product, Risk, and Engineering leadership, and ship durable, scalable capabilities that form the foundation of our platform.
You will report to the Head of Engineering and work closely with Product, Operations, and Leadership. Decisions move quickly, expectations are high, and the systems you build go straight into productionoften becoming mission-critical within weeks.
This role is ideal for an engineer who:
- Enjoys building core platforms and workflows, not throwaway prototypes
- Cares deeply about architecture, data flow, and system boundaries
- Thrives in a fast-moving, high-ownership environment
- Wants to see their work directly power a real fintech product at scale
What You'll Actually Do
- Build and scale core backend services in Java, supporting credit workflows, document processing, and financial operations
- Develop and maintain React.js-based frontend interfaces that are reliable, performant, and intuitive
- Design and implement event-driven workflows and state machines that orchestrate complex, multi-step business processes
- Integrate AI/LLM-powered capabilities into production systems (e.g. document intelligence, classification, extraction, decision support)
- Work deeply with data pipelines and a central Data Lake, enabling analytics, credit intelligence, and downstream reporting
- Participate fully in agile sprintsplanning, estimation, execution, reviews, and retrospectives
- Own features end-to-end: design, implementation, testing, deployment, monitoring, and iteration
- Collaborate across teams to integrate enterprise customer systems and third-party services
- Continuously refactor and improve existing systems, balancing speed today with scalability tomorrow
This is about fast execution with engineering discipline, not move fast and break things.
Modern Tech Stack & Architecture
You will work on a modern, cloud-native, event-driven architecture, including:
Core Backend & Frontend
- Java (primary backend language)
- RESTful APIs and service-oriented architecture
- React.js with modern JavaScript / TypeScript
- Relational databases (PostgreSQL or similar)
Cloud & Platform (Azure-first)
- Azure Functions
- Azure Service Bus & Event Grid
- API Management
- Azure Data Lake
- Logic Apps
- CI/CD pipelines and containerized deployments
Architecture Patterns
- Event-driven architecture as a first-class design principle
- State machines for workflow orchestration and credit lifecycle management
- Clear separation between orchestration, domain logic, and integration layers
Automation & Integration Layer
A significant part of our platform sits at the intersection of finance, automation, and enterprise systems. You will work with:
- Drools Rules Engine for business rules, eligibility checks, and credit decisioning logic
- n8n workflows for low-code automation, integrations, and rapid internal tooling
- Enterprise integrations including SAP Ariba, Oracle Fusion, and customer ERP/AP systems
- Third-party APIs for documents, payments, and financial data
This is real-world systems integrationnot toy problems.
AI, Data & Intelligence Layer
- Integration with Claude / GPT APIs for document intelligence and unstructured data processing
- Prompt-driven workflows embedded into backend services
- Data Lake and data pipelines that power analytics, credit scoring, and operational insights
- Close collaboration between engineering, data, and risk functions
AI here is part of the core system, not a demo feature.
Our Engineering Culture: Conscious Vibe Coding
We believe great engineering today means using AI intelligently without sacrificing rigor.
- AI-assisted development using tools like Claude, Cursor, and Copilot
- Prompt engineering treated as a real engineering skill, not a gimmick
- Fast iteration paired with code reviews, testing, and architectural discipline
- A strong bias toward intelligent automation over manual processes
- Clear ownership, thoughtful design, and systems that other engineers can reason about
We move fastbut we are intentional about how we move fast.
The Engineer We're Looking For
- 35 years of experience as a full stack or backend-focused engineer
- Strong, hands-on experience with Java in production environments
- Solid experience building user-facing applications with React.js
- Comfortable working in sprint-based agile teams
- Experience designing APIs, working with data models, and distributed systems
- Curious about AI, automation, and modern architectureeven if you haven't used every tool listed
- Understands trade-offs between speed, scalability, and maintainability
- Takes ownership and responsibility for what they ship
You don't need to be a growth hacker. You need to be a thoughtful, high-velocity product engineer.
Why Zelo Why Now
- We've achieved productmarket fit and raised fresh capital from our parent, IHC
- We're scaling a real fintech product with real customers and real revenue
- Your work directly shapes the core platform, not side experiments
- You'll ship frequentlywithout slow, bureaucratic release cycles
- You'll work closely with decision-makers and see your ideas implemented quickly
- You'll grow faster here than in large, slow-moving organizations
This is a chance to help build the engineering foundation of a high-growth fintech company at a defining moment.
The Interview Process (We Respect Your Time)
- Quick online assessment - Complete our technical test at https://app.testgorilla.com/s/td6tpelr (75 mins)
- Technical discussion + live problem solving (90 mins) - No leetcode BS, real problems we're actually facing
- Chat with our Head of Engineering (30 mins) - Tell us your story, we'll tell you ours
- Culture fit with CEO/COO (45 mins) - Make sure we vibe
Ready to Join the Squad
If you've read this far and your heart is beating a little faster, start with our quick technical assessment at https://app.testgorilla.com/s/td6tpelr and we'll reach out to you.
That's it - nothing else required for now.
P.S. - Our Head of Engineering once shipped a feature during a team dinner because a customer needed it urgently. If that sounds like madness you'd enjoy, you belong here.
