You do not need to code to work in product, but you need to understand how software is put together. Adverts for associate product roles ask for technical fluency, and fintech product roles in Accra mention mobile money and payment integrations. Technical literacy helps you judge effort, spot risks early and earn engineers' respect.
The main parts of most products
- Frontend. What users see and touch: an app screen, a web page or a USSD menu.
- Backend. Servers that apply the business rules, such as "lock savings for 30 days", and talk to other systems.
- Database. Where information is stored: users, orders, balances. Data is kept in tables with rows and columns, a bit like a spreadsheet.
- APIs. An API (application programming interface) is a set of agreed requests one system can make to another. Your app's frontend calls the backend's API; your backend calls a payment provider's API.
How a mobile money payment usually works
The details vary by provider, but the general flow is:
- Your app asks your backend to charge a customer 50 cedis.
- Your backend sends a request to the payment provider's API.
- The provider sends a prompt to the customer's phone asking for their PIN.
- The customer approves (or ignores it).
- The provider later tells your backend the result, often through a or , a message sent to an address your backend provides.