Director Of Product Engineering

Timbuk2; Cape Town; Hybrid; ZAR 500 000 - 600 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading tech firm in Cape Town is seeking an experienced AI-First Architect to reshape their tech stack. This director-level position offers significant equity and direct involvement with the CEO. Candidates should have over 7 years of engineering experience, proven generative AI product delivery, and strong Python skills. Join a groundbreaking mission to develop market intelligence for Africa's informal economies, working autonomously with a visionary impact.

Benefits

Significant equity stake

Total autonomy

Massive impact opportunities

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in engineering with clear progression.
• Led re-architecture of a monolithic application.
• Shipped a product using Generative AI / LLMs.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical roadmap and diagnose performance issues.
• Lead development of core LLM-based insights engine.
• Ship production-grade Python code and mentor the team.

Skills

Python programming

AI/LLM experience

Microservices architecture

UX-focused design

Tools

FastAPI

Django

Cursor

Job description

Company: Timbuk2 AI

Location: Cape Town (Hybrid)

Compensation: Executive-Level Salary + Significant Foundational Equity Stake

Mission: Mapping the Unmapped – Timbuk2 AI is building the market intelligence engine for Africa's informal economies.

We transform real-world, often-hidden data (from informal retail, micro-enterprises, and high-movement zones) into actionable insights.

We empower businesses with tools to drive location planning, retail strategy, and targeted engagement in the markets that everyone else ignores.

The Role

This is Not a 'Business as Usual' Job. This is a "greenfield-on-a-brownfield" mission.

We've built a V1 platform that has proven our market, but it was not built for scale or speed.

It was built with a "PDF-generation" mindset, not a modern, reactive UI mindset.

We are not looking for a "process manager" to just oversee tickets.

We are looking for an AI-First Architect and Player-Coach to partner directly with the CEO, take ownership of our entire tech stack, and re-architect it for the "Vercel-Native" generation.

You are the single-threaded owner for technical quality, architecture, and velocity.

Your mission is to fix the "sins of the past" and build a world-class, "Data-First" platform that is fast, reliable, and "just works."

Core Responsibilities

• Architectural "Truth-Teller": Own the technical roadmap and immediately diagnose performance bottlenecks, stop the migration of the problem, and implement a scalable, decoupled, UX-first architecture.
• AI-Native Leadership: Serve as the Head of AI and Head of Engineering in one, lead the development of our core LLM-based insights engine, championing Context Engineering and using AI-native tools (Cursor, etc.) to 10x the team's output.
• A-Player "Player-Coach": Ship production-grade Python code and lead, mentor, and level-up the engineering team as a bar-setter for quality and accountability, managing A-Players and managing out B-Players.
• Product & Velocity Obsession: Act as the CEO's key partner in translating product vision into a high-velocity, high-quality, MVP-driven roadmap; obsess over shipping and cringe at slow load times.

Non-NEGOTIABLE Requirements (The "Who")

• 7+ Years of Experience: Minimum 7 years in engineering with clear progression to Principal, Staff, or Director-level role.
• Monolith-Slayer (Proof): Personally led re-architecture of a monolithic application into a performant, decoupled microservices system and can diagram from memory.
• AI-First Builder (Proof): Personally shipped a production-level product where Generative AI / LLMs were core to the user value.
• Hands-On Python Expert: A player-coach who can write world-class, production-grade Python (FastAPI, Django, etc.) and set the standard for the team.
• Product-Obsessed: UX-minded architect who understands the backend serves the frontend and is disgusted by anything that makes a user wait.
• "AI-Native" Fluency: Use Cursor (or similar) daily and be fluent in the Vercel-Native stack (Vercel, Serverless, Neon / KV).

Why You Should Join Timbuk2 AI

Massive Impact: Solve a world-first problem – creating the definitive intelligence engine for Africa's $1 Trillion informal economy.

Foundational Equity: This is a Director-level role with a significant, life-changing equity stake.

You are not an employee; you are an owner.

Total Autonomy: Direct mandate from the CEO and no bureaucracy.

Just find the truth, and build.