Software Engineer

Company Description
Africa’s Network Security (AFNSec) is dedicated to strengthening Africa’s cybersecurity landscape by designing, integrating, and delivering modern security solutions that protect networks across the continent. The organization focuses on practical, real world protection against an evolving and increasingly complex threat environment. AFNSec emphasizes resilience and long-term security improvements, aiming to create sustainable defenses for public and private sector stakeholders. Team members collaborate remotely, contributing to meaningful impact on the security and stability of digital infrastructure in Africa.
Role Description
This is a part-time, remote Systems Software Engineer role focused on C development, Linux systems programming, and network and remote access protocols. The Software Engineer will design, develop, enhance, and maintain secure systems level components that support AFNSec’s cybersecurity solutions. Day to day responsibilities include developing and improving protocol implementations, integrating and extending open source networking libraries, troubleshooting connection and session issues, optimizing performance and reliability, and implementing new capabilities. The role involves working with technologies, database connectivity, TCP/IP, TLS, and other remote access and network protocols. The engineer will also investigate memory, concurrency, and network-related issues; review and test code; document technical designs; and collaborate with security specialists to ensure components are secure, reliable, and maintainable.
Qualifications
* Strong programming experience in C, including pointers, memory management, buffers, structures, callbacks, and low-level programming concepts.
* Experience with Linux systems programming, POSIX APIs, processes, threads, sockets, file descriptors, and related operating system concepts.
* Strong understanding of TCP/IP networking and socket programming.
* Experience developing, integrating, or troubleshooting network protocols and client/server applications.
* Experience working with or extending open-source C/C++ libraries and existing codebases.
* Understanding of multithreaded programming, concurrency, synchronization, and asynchronous network operations.
* Ability to troubleshoot complex issues involving application code, operating systems, and network communications.
* Experience with debugging and diagnostic tools such as GDB, Valgrind, AddressSanitizer, strace, tcpdump, or Wireshark.
* Familiarity with secure coding practices, authentication, encryption, TLS, certificate handling, and least-privilege principles.
* Experience with Git and collaborative software development workflows.
* Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to independently investigate complex technical issues.
* Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly and work effectively in a remote development environment.
* Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Cybersecurity, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Preferred Qualifications
* Experience with database protocols or connectivity, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, or Redis.
* Familiarity with modern network transport technologies.
* Experience debugging network protocols using packet captures and protocol analysis.
* Experience optimizing C applications for memory usage, CPU utilization, stability, and high numbers of concurrent connections.
* Familiarity with CMake, Make, OpenSSL/GnuTLS, systemd, Linux namespaces, or Debian/Ubuntu environments.
* Experience contributing to or modifying established open-source systems or networking projects.
* Knowledge of cybersecurity concepts related to secure remote access, privileged access, Zero Trust, or session security.

Work arrangement
Yes