Software Engineer; Backend​/Java​/Springboot

Sanlam Life and Savings (SLS) is focused on serving our retail and corporate clients in South Africa and further developing our strategic advantages in the South African market. Sanlam Life and Savings consists of the following business units Retail Mass, Corporate, Risk and Savings, Glacier and various business enabling functions. The Sanlam Life and Savings Office provides strategic direction, coordination and support to the four clusters, as well as performing governance oversight that includes assurance provided by second line of defense functions in SLS, to enable us to meet our business objectives.

Sanlam Life and Savings (SLS) is focused on serving our retail and corporate clients in South Africa and further developing our strategic advantages in the South African market. Sanlam Life and Savings consists of the following business units Retail Mass, Corporate, Risk and Savings, Glacier and various business enabling functions. The Sanlam Life and Savings Office provides strategic direction, coordination and support to the four clusters, as well as performing governance oversight that includes assurance provided by second line of defense functions in SLS, to enable us to meet our business objectives.

At Sanlam Life & Savings, technology is more than systems and platforms. It’s how we enable millions of South Africans to plan, protect, and grow their financial futures.

We’re looking for a Senior Backend Software Engineer who loves building robust, well designed software — someone who’s motivated by scale, impact, and technical craftsmanship, and who wants to help modernise and shape one of the country’s largest financial services environments.

As a Senior Backend Software Engineer, you’ll be a core member of a modern, product aligned engineering squad, working closely with product, architecture, and platform teams to deliver meaningful outcomes.

• Actively participate in agile ceremonies (stand‑ups, planning, reviews, retrospectives) and contribute to continuous improvement of team ways of working.
• Collaborate with the Product Owner and Tech Lead to translate product and business requirements into well‑scoped technical work and delivery increments.
• Take ownership of delivering high‑quality software that meets sprint and release goals, with a strong focus on reliability, maintainability, and performance.
• Contribute to solution design and technical decision‑making, ensuring alignment with agreed architectural standards and patterns.
• Write clean, well‑tested, and well‑documented code, adhering to engineering best practices and team coding standards.
• Embed quality into development through unit tests, integration tests, and automated checks as part of the CI/CD pipeline.
• Support deployment, observability, and operational readiness of services across testing and production environments, working closely with platform and Dev Ops teams.
• Communicate progress, risks, and dependencies transparently within the team, and proactively raise issues that may impact delivery.
• Share knowledge, patterns, and learnings with peers through code reviews, documentation, and informal mentoring.
• Continuously improve your technical skills and contribute to improving the team’s engineering practices, tools, and delivery capabilities.

• Relevant Computer Science degree or diploma
• Honours or postgraduate degree preferred
• Java Certification will be advantageous

• 5+ years’ professional experience building and maintaining enterprise grade backend applications using Java.
• Proven experience working as a senior individual contributor within agile delivery teams, contributing to production systems at scale.