Head of Engineering

TAWK SDN. BHD.; Kuala Lumpur; Hybrid; MYR 250,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading business messaging platform in Kuala Lumpur seeks an Engineering Leader to co-own the technical direction and oversee engineering execution. Responsibilities include defining the vision with the CTO, leading distributed teams, and ensuring product reliability. Ideal candidates have over 10 years in software engineering and at least 5 years in leadership. The role offers growth opportunities within a collaborative, remote-first culture.

Benefits

Growth opportunities

Collaborative work culture

Direct impact on a globally recognized product

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software engineering, with at least 5+ years in engineering leadership roles.
• Proven experience leading distributed or global engineering teams.
• Proven experience managing high‑traffic, customer‑facing SaaS platforms.

Responsibilities

• Co-define and drive the engineering vision in partnership with the CTO.
• Oversee delivery of product and infrastructure roadmaps.
• Partner with Product and Design to balance innovation with execution.

Skills

Communication

Technical leadership

Team management

Problem-solving

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field

Tools

Vue.js

GCP

AWS

Kubernetes

MongoDB

Elasticsearch

Job description

About the Company

Tawk.to is the world's leading business messaging platform, enabling millions of businesses to communicate and engage with their customers in real time. We are a globally distributed, bootstrapped company with a simple mission — to help businesses meet their customers where they are.

Role Overview

You will co‑own the entire technical direction of tawk.to with the CTO and be the ultimate owner of engineering execution, reliability, and velocity. You will oversee all engineering teams — including web, mobile, backend, DevOps, QA, and infrastructure — while partnering closely with Product, Design, and Operations to deliver exceptional product experiences to millions of users worldwide. This is a deeply technical, hands‑on leadership role: you will still dive into architecture discussions, review critical PRs, and be the incident commander during major incidents.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategy & Technical Leadership
  • Co‑define and drive the engineering vision in partnership with the CTO, ensuring alignment with product and business strategy.
  • Lead the evolution of platform architecture to support global scalability, performance, and reliability.
  • Translate product goals into actionable engineering plans and measurable outcomes.
  • Lead, mentor, and scale engineering teams across multiple time zones (Malaysia, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Latvia, and beyond).
  • Build a culture of accountability, innovation, and collaboration within a remote‑first environment.
  • Set and monitor performance standards and career growth paths for engineering managers and leads.
  • Ensure effective communication, alignment, and collaboration across distributed teams.
  • Hands‑on partnership with the CTO on technical architecture, from backend systems to APIs, frontend, and mobile apps.
  • Strategic use of AI inside engineering (developer productivity, code analysis, automated QA).
  • Champion world‑class Developer Experience (DX) by shaping tools, processes, documentation, and engineering workflows that enable fast, safe, and joyful development.
  • Ensure reliability, uptime, and performance through proactive monitoring and optimization.
  • Partner with DevOps to ensure scalability, cost efficiency, and operational resilience.
  • Implement robust processes for development, CI/CD, testing, and deployment.
  • Ensure security, compliance (SOC2, GDPR), and data‑protection standards are exceeded.
• Execution & Delivery
  • Oversee delivery of product and infrastructure roadmaps, ensuring timely and high‑quality releases.
  • Drive continuous improvement in velocity, quality, and operational efficiency.
• Cross‑Functional Collaboration
  • Partner with Product and Design to balance innovation with execution.
  • Collaborate with Operations, HR, and Finance for resource planning, budgeting, and vendor management.

Qualifications & Experience

• Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field.
• 10+ years in software engineering, with at least 5+ years in engineering leadership roles.
• Proven experience leading distributed or global engineering teams.
• Proven experience managing high‑traffic, customer‑facing SaaS platforms.

Technical Expertise

• Frontend: Vue.js (admin dashboards and internal tools)
• Infrastructure: GCP + AWS, Kubernetes, high‑availability distributed systems
• Real‑time layer: WebSockets at massive scale, low‑latency event delivery
• Event‑driven architectures and message queues at scale
• Horizontal scaling of document/no‑SQL databases (MongoDB sharding, Elasticsearch clusters)
• Cost‑optimized cloud operations
• Modern SRE practices, observability, and chaos engineering

Preferred Attributes

• Prior experience in SaaS, messaging, communications, or large‑scale web applications.
• Strong business acumen with an understanding of product‑led growth models.
• Passion for mentoring and developing technical leaders.
• Ability to thrive in a transparent, results‑driven culture.

What We Offer

• Leadership role with direct impact on a globally recognized product.
• Growth opportunities in a flat, high‑trust organization.
• Collaborative and transparent work culture with global exposure.

Applicant Questions

• Which of the following statements best describes your right to work in Malaysia?
• How many years' experience do you have using SQL queries?
• What's your expected monthly basic salary?
• Which of the following types of qualifications do you have?
• How many years' experience do you have as a Head of Engineering?