Director of Engineering

Robert Walters; Remote; ZAR 1 000 000 - 1 500 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading software development agency is seeking an engineering leader based in South Africa. This role involves owning engineering delivery for multiple projects, establishing engineering standards, and operationalizing AI. Candidates should have extensive experience in software engineering and leadership, particularly in agency/consulting environments. The position offers competitive compensation, remote flexibility, and opportunities for growth in a vibrant team culture.

Benefits

Competitive South Africa-market compensation

Equity/phantom options for exceptional candidates

Co-working space allowance

Home office & connectivity allowance

Learning budget for certifications/conferences

Paid time off aligned to SA standards

Qualifications

• 12-18 years in software engineering with 5+ years leading multi-squad delivery.
• Proven track record building engineering standards/platforms.
• Deep expertise in at least one modern stack.

Responsibilities

• Own engineering delivery across multiple client projects.
• Be hands-on in code reviews and unblock risks.
• Operationalise AI in real products.

Skills

Software engineering

Team leadership

Stakeholder management

Cloud fundamentals

Modern stack expertise

Job description

Our client is a London-HQ software development agency delivering modern web and AI products for international clients – from VC-backed startups to established enterprises. Their delivery team is primarily Philippines-based, with one team member in South Africa so far; they are now hiring an SA-based engineering leader to drive execution, standards and team growth alongside their fractional CTO.

Role Summary

Own engineering delivery across multiple client projects. Define the “golden path” (standards, templates, CI/CD, IaC, quality gates, security). Be hands‑on when it matters – reading/writing code, reviewing architectures, unblocking risk. Operationalise AI in real products. Grow and mentor a distributed team (PH + a small SA nucleus).

You will

• Own delivery & engineering management: Plan, staff and ship reliably across parallel client engagements; surface and manage technical risk.
• Be hands‑on when needed: Dive into code/architecture, run design reviews, pair on hard problems.
• Stand up the golden path: Establish secure SDLC, repo templates/monorepo strategy, CI/CD, infrastructure‑as‑code, observability, QA/UAT and release practices.
• Operationalise AI: Introduce standard patterns for RAG/agents, prompt/guardrail/eval workflows, data/privacy reviews and cost monitoring.
• Lead people & culture: Coach tech leads and ICs in the Philippines; hire and grow 2–4 SA engineers time; set clear expectations, feedback and progression.
• Face clients when required: Support discovery, solutioning and estimates; handle tough trade‑offs and communicate with non‑technical stakeholders.
• Partner with the fractional CTO: Align on tech strategy and radar; you own day‑day execution.

First 3‑6 months

• Engineering playbook and reusable templates live; projects migrated onto the golden path.
• Project health dashboard running (lead time, deploy frequency, change fail %, MTTR, plus margin signals).
• Security/privacy baseline in place (secrets, PII handling, GDPR/POPIA, AI usage policy).
• Two flagship client projects measurably faster and more reliable (e.g. 25 %+ PR cycle‑time reduction; doubled deploy frequency).

Skills & Experience

• 12-18 years in software engineering with 5+ years leading multi‑squad delivery (agency/consulting strongly preferred).
• Proven track record building engineering standards/platforms (pipelines, monorepos, IaC, SRE/observability).
• Deep expertise in at least one modern stack (e.g. TypeScript/Node, React/Next.js, NestJS) and strong cloud fundamentals (AWS preferred).
• Comfortable shipping LLM/AI features in production (OpenAI/Azure OpenAI, vector stores, retrieval patterns, evals/guardrails).
• Excellent stakeholder management; confident with clients and execs.
• Experienced leading distributed teams across time zones (UK + PH) and able to jump into code when stakes are high.

Location & ways of working

• Remote in South Africa; Cape Town preferred for talent network and meetups.
• Core collaboration 9:00–18:00 SAST, with occasional overlap for PH/UK as needed.
• Occasional travel to the UK and/or the Philippines.

Compensation & Benefits

• Competitive South Africa–market compensation (ZAR)
• Equity/phantom options available for exceptional candidates.
• Co‑working space (Workshop 17 Waterfront)
• Home office & connectivity allowance; learning budget for certifications/conferences.
• Paid time off aligned to SA standards and public holidays.