At least 5 years of hands-on experience with software development using Typescript and React.
Experience in managing engineering teams, including hiring and performance management.
Strong technical skills with the ability to contribute to both frontend and backend development.
Experience with startup or greenfield projects, demonstrating adaptability and problem-solving in dynamic environments.
Requirements:
Lead and guide the engineering team, balancing hands-on development with management duties.
Collaborate closely with product and design teams to inform roadmaps and prioritize tasks.
Oversee architecture, best practices, and platform reliability, including managing releases and monitoring systems.
Mentor and grow the engineering team, with potential for future hiring and team expansion.
Job description
LOCATION
Global (Remote)
A venture-backed marketplace company focused on scaling across Africa is looking for an Engineering Lead.
What they are looking for
They are looking for a solid technical contributor to lead and guide the engineering team. Your time will be split between hands-on development work, managing the team of engineers, and working closely with the Product team on roadmaps, initial estimations, and ways of working across the team. This is a great opportunity if you’re either already an engineering manager but have kept your technical skills sharp, or a strong technical individual ready to take a step up in responsibility and reach.
What does the job involve
Hands-on development work. They’d like you to be able to pick up tasks across the board as needed, whether that is frontend updates or backend architecture. Their primary tech stack uses Typescript, React/Next.js, gRPC, all running on GCP with modern CI and deployment pipelines in place.
Overall ownership of the architecture, best practices, platform reliability, and ways of working within the engineering team. You will need to be comfortable not only with implementing code changes, but also managing releases, monitoring systems such as Sentry for any abnormal activity, and overall ensuring that our systems continue to operate smoothly.
Close collaboration with the Product and Design function. You’ll work closely with their product managers to help inform roadmaps and prioritization. You’ll be the person to know what’s easy, what’s hard, and when to suggest alternative ways of accomplishing the same business goal.
Manage, mentor, and grow the engineering team. You’d initially be the manager for a team of three great engineers but would be the point person for future hiring when the company expands.
Qualifications
5+ years of proven experience as an individual software developer using relevant tools and technologies. They do all new development on Typescript, both frontend and backend, and you need to be able to hit the ground running using these tools. Exposure to Python is a bonus as they do use this for parts of their legacy platform and data science projects.
Experience as a manager including hiring, performance management, streamlining ways of working, and cross-functional collaboration is a strong plus, though they will consider candidates with exceptional technical skills who are interested in taking on management responsibilities
Greenfield/startup experience is a big plus. You’ve likely worked in smaller teams tasked with creating something from nothing, not only in bigger organizations where everything is already defined for you. has very good foundations in terms of the tech stack, CI/deployment pipelines, error monitoring, etc., but as with any startup, you will be required to be flexible and adapt solutions to the needs of the situation with a mix of code, third party solutions, integrations, no-code solutions, etc.
Non-Negotiables
5+ years of experience working hands-on with software development in Typescript and React
Previous experience as an engineering manager
The candidate should Ideally based in Kenya or have the ability to travel regularly since their engineering team is currently all based in Kenya
