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South Africa
Remote only
This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior Engineering Manager based in South Africa.
This is an opportunity to lead two critical engineering teams responsible for building and maintaining the technology foundations that power a growing software platform. As Senior Engineering Manager, you will oversee Platform and Integrations, shaping their technical direction, product roadmaps, and delivery strategies. You will ensure engineering infrastructure, developer tooling, CI/CD, observability, identity systems, and third-party integrations remain reliable, scalable, and efficient. Reporting directly to the CTO, you will combine strategic leadership with hands-on technical involvement, contributing to architecture decisions and code when needed. You will also develop engineering talent, strengthen team performance, and foster a culture of ownership and continuous improvement. The role is suited to an experienced engineering leader who thrives in a distributed, fast-moving environment and enjoys balancing technical excellence with business priorities.
You will lead the Platform and Integrations engineering teams, ensuring their technical roadmaps align with organizational priorities while maintaining high standards of software quality, delivery, and team development.
Execution & Delivery
Act as product owner for Platform and Integrations initiatives, gathering requirements from product teams and external partners.
Prioritize requests, define objectives, and translate business and technical needs into clear roadmaps.
Break down requirements into well-scoped, sequenced tasks and establish delivery milestones for both teams.
Monitor progress and team health throughout the software development lifecycle, identifying bottlenecks and improving delivery processes.
Coordinate with other engineering squads to ensure alignment and effective collaboration.
Communicate roadmaps, priorities, trade-offs, dependencies, and risks clearly to Product, Engineering, and other stakeholders.
Technical Leadership
Define and drive the technical vision for both teams in alignment with broader business objectives and long-term scalability needs.
Own technical roadmaps, including strategic technical debt, evaluating its impact, cost, and benefits to guide prioritization.
Remain hands-on by writing and reviewing code in Java, Python, or Go when required.
Contribute to system design, API contracts, architectural decisions, and scalability trade-offs.
Collaborate closely with Infrastructure and DevOps teams on cloud environments, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and reliability.
Participate in production incident reviews and root cause analyses, helping prevent recurring issues.
Establish and maintain engineering quality standards, including pull request reviews, test coverage, deployment rollback plans, monitoring, and alerting.
Balance development speed with long-term maintainability, reliability, and code quality.
People Management & Team Development
Lead and develop two engineering teams, providing regular one-on-one meetings, coaching, feedback, and performance reviews.
Support career progression through clear expectations, development plans, and appropriate delegation of ownership.
Manage headcount planning, recruitment, interviewing, and onboarding.
Monitor and improve engineering productivity, delivery velocity, and software quality.
Build a collaborative environment that encourages accountability, continuous learning, and constructive feedback.
Introduce and improve management and engineering practices to support team growth and effective execution.
The ideal candidate combines substantial software engineering experience with proven people management, product ownership, and infrastructure expertise. You should be comfortable making decisions in ambiguous environments, managing multiple teams, and remaining technically engaged while supporting engineers' professional growth.
Technical & Professional Experience
At least 5 years of experience developing software as an individual contributor.
Strong hands-on programming experience in Java, Python, or Go, with a continued interest in coding.
At least 3 years of experience managing engineering teams of approximately 10–15 people.
Experience managing two teams simultaneously is a strong advantage.
Demonstrated product management experience, including roadmap ownership, stakeholder prioritization, and scope trade-offs.
Practical experience with DevOps and infrastructure technologies, including cloud platforms, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and monitoring. Experience collaborating closely with DevOps engineers is also relevant.
Proven experience applying Lean and Agile management practices.
Track record of successfully delivering several large-scale projects within the past three years.
Advanced English proficiency, particularly in written and spoken communication.
Leadership & Management Skills
Ability to manage engineers with different technical specializations and levels of experience.
Strong communication skills, including setting clear expectations and providing regular, constructive feedback.
Experience facilitating effective one-on-ones, team discussions, planning sessions, and retrospectives.
Ability to identify high-value initiatives, prioritize effectively, and keep teams focused on meaningful outcomes.
Strong ownership and decision-making skills, including the ability to create clarity and alignment in ambiguous situations.
Ability to develop processes, remove obstacles, and improve team execution.
Comfortable adapting to changing priorities, organizational structures, and evolving responsibilities.
Empathetic, direct, and thoughtful approach to communication and feedback.
Experience recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding engineers at different seniority levels.
Data-driven prioritization skills and confidence challenging decisions when necessary.
Sound judgment when balancing code quality, technical debt, and development speed.
Additional Experience That Would Be an Advantage
Previous experience working in Platform Engineering, Infrastructure, or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams.
Experience building or managing integrations, including public APIs, partner integrations, webhooks, and event-driven systems.
Familiarity with messaging technologies such as RabbitMQ and Kafka.
Experience leading engineering teams in startups or high-growth environments.
Experience introducing engineering and people-management practices, such as code reviews, performance evaluations, career levels, and development frameworks.
Experience managing partially or fully remote engineering teams.
Hands-on familiarity with Datadog and Metabase.
Knowledge of Russian.
Fully remote, distributed working environment.
Transparent and collaborative culture with highly motivated colleagues working on complex technical challenges.
Monthly gym and wellness stipend of $50.
Flexible paid time off, allowing employees to take time away when needed.
Six weeks of paid paternity leave.
Appropriate technology and equipment to support effective remote work.
Home office equipment support, where needed.
Opportunity to shape the technical direction of two important engineering teams and contribute directly to platform scalability and product development.
