Senior Software Engineer I

Careem is building the Everything App for the greater Middle East - making it easy to move around, order food and groceries, manage payments, and more. Our purpose is simple: to simplify and improve people’s lives and build an awesome organisation that inspires.

Since 2012, Careem has enabled earnings for over 2.5 million Captains, simplified the lives of more than 70 million customers, and built a platform where the region’s best talent and entrepreneurs thrive. We operate in 70+ cities across 10 countries, from Morocco to Pakistan.

We’re now entering our next chapter - one powered by AI. We’re looking for AI talent: curious problem-solvers who know how to apply AI to build tools, automate workflows, and create real impact. Whether it’s streamlining operations, enhancing customer experience, or reimagining internal systems - we want people who can make Careem work smarter and move faster.

About the Role

Careem's Quick and Shops team owns the customer-facing backend experience for two of our fastest-growing verticals. We power everything a customer sees and interacts with inside the consumer app - from browsing to checkout - through a server-driven UI architecture that keeps our mobile and backend teams tightly aligned.

As a Senior Software Engineer I, you will take full ownership of backend domains, build reliable and scalable services, and collaborate closely with mobile engineers to deliver a seamless customer experience for millions of Careem users.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services powering the Quick and Shops customer experience.
• Write high-quality Golang code, delivering complete features and resolving bugs independently.
• Build and maintain REST APIs, service-to-service integrations, and gateway and configuration-driven systems.
• Own and evolve backend data models and catalog systems supporting our product verticals.
• Manage event-driven systems using Kafka and Avro schema evolution.
• Support AWS cloud infrastructure including S3, CloudFront, DNS, and certificate management.
• Participate in on-call rotations and debug production issues across highly distributed and decoupled systems.
• Mentor junior colleagues and drive cross-functional technical discussions across teams.
• Champion AI-assisted development tools as part of your daily engineering workflow.

What You'll Need

• Proven backend engineering experience at a mid-band level or above - this is not an entry-level role.
• Strong hands-on experience with Golang; candidates with deep experience in another modern language (Java, Kotlin, C#, C++) will be considered if they can demonstrate a clear ability to ramp up.
• Product-facing backend experience - you have built systems that directly serve end customers, not purely infrastructure or platform-isolated work.
• Experience with REST APIs, service-to-service integrations, and distributed systems.
• Familiarity with data modeling, Kafka, and Avro schema evolution.
• AWS cloud infrastructure exposure - S3, CloudFront, DNS, certificate management.
• On-call ownership and a track record of debugging complex issues across distributed systems independently.
• Strong communication skills, a collaborative mindset, and the ability to work autonomously without close supervision.
• Experience mentoring junior engineers and coordinating across cross-functional teams.

Nice to Have

• Understanding of server-driven UI paradigms.
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Working knowledge of relational and non-relational databases.
• Familiarity with software engineering best practices: code reviews, source control, testing standards.

What we’ll provide you

We offer colleagues the opportunity to drive impact in the region while they learn and grow. As a full time Careem colleague, you will be able to:

• Work and learn from great minds by joining a community of inspiring colleagues.
• Put your passion to work in a purposeful organisation dedicated to creating impact in a region with a lot of untapped potential.
• Explore new opportunities to learn and grow every day.
• Work 4 days a week in office & 1 day from home, and remotely from any country in the world for 30 days a year with unlimited vacation days per year. (If you are in an individual contributor role in tech, you will have 2 office days a week and 3 to work from home.)
• Access to healthcare benefits and fitness reimbursements for health activities including gym, health club, and training classes.