Engineering Lead

Ninety One; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 950,000 - 1,650,000; Full time

Job summary

Ninety One is seeking an experienced engineer to lead the ongoing development of the Investment Platform within the Digital Technology team. You will drive architecture, governance, and AI-driven process improvements, while aligning with business goals and industry standards.

The role emphasizes secure, scalable design, CI/CD, and proactive quality tooling, with a focus on empowering squads to deliver reliable platform capabilities in a complex asset-management environment.

Qualifications

• BSc or equivalent in mathematical, computing or engineering field.
• Minimum 5 years working with micro-service architectures in full-stack roles.
• Experience with Azure cloud and C#/.NET stack preferred.
• Experience with micro-service APIs and containerized deployments (Service Fabric).
• Strong understanding of CI/CD, automated testing and secure coding practices.

Responsibilities

• Provide hands-on oversight of detailed architecture and design across engineering squads.
• Ensure alignment with architectural direction and day-to-day decisions.
• Lead external API integrations, ensuring secure, scalable interfaces.
• Drive engineering enablement, automation, and quality at scale.
• Own roadmap for addressing platform-wide technical debt and security considerations.
• Champion AI-assisted tooling and preventative engineering practices.
• Collaborate with Platform Architect and Delivery Manager for cohesive planning.

Skills

Attention to detail

Problem solving

Mentoring

Team collaboration

Education

BSc Degree Level in math/compute/engineering

Tools

Azure

C#

.NET Core

ASP.NET Core

T-SQL

Angular/React/Vue

Job description

About us:

Ninety One is an independent, active global asset manager withR3,4 trillion* of assets under management.

Established in South Africa in 1991, as Investec Asset Management, the firm started offering domestic investments in an emerging market. In 2020, almost three decades of organic growth later, the firm demerged from Investec Group and became Ninety One.

Our distinctive capabilities sit within differentiated fixed income and credit as well as specialist equities, and we have a unique perspective and approach to investment opportunities presented by emerging markets and the energy transition.

*as at31 December 2025

Ninety One is an equal opportunities employer. Our imperative is to attract and retain the best talent by providing a corporate environment where people from varying backgrounds can develop professionally and build a rewarding career.

About the team:

Ninety One’sDigital Technology team is currently recruiting for a dynamic and multi-skilled individual who is passionate about technology to lead the ongoing engineering effortof Ninety One’s Investment Platform. This role requires a strong emphasis onAI-driven process innovation, engineering excellence, and empathetic leadership. The successful candidate needs to be a visionary and disciplined professional who continuously seeks toreinvent engineering practices using AI, while aligning with industry standards and business goals.

In this role you will:

Detailed Architecture Design, Oversight & Technical Governance

• Work with the Platform Solution Architect to provide hands-on oversight of detailed architecture and design across engineering squads.
• Ensure alignment with strategic architectural direction while bridging the gap between high-level architecture and day-to-day engineering decisions.
• Review and validate technical analysis outputs before development begins to ensure feasibility, alignment with standards, and accurate estimation.
• Work with product owners and external partners to align API capabilities with client needs and platform strategy.
• Provide technical leadership for external API integrations, ensuring secure, scalable, and well-documented interfaces.

Engineering Enablement, Automation, Productivity & Quality at Scale

• Effectively managing engineering impediments for engineers.
• Continuously evaluating and managing access controls to maintain security and relevance.
• Championing engineering best practices including CI/CD, automated testing, secure coding standards, and preventative quality tooling.
• Defining and enforcing coding standards, peer review protocols, and automated quality gates (e.g., static analysis, performance checks, pipeline enforcement).
• Ensuring quality gates cannot be bypassed under delivery pressure without structured governance.
• Promoting a culture of clean, maintainable, performant, and scalable code.
• Leading initiatives to improve development velocity through intelligent automation and tooling without compromising reliability.
• Identifying, sourcing, and embedding tools that improve engineering quality and prevent production issues before they occur.
• Ensuring engineering output improves in both speed and quality through automation, AI-assisted tooling, and preventative engineering practices.

Platform Security, Resilience & Availability

• Own the roadmap for addressing platform-wide technical debt, including vendor deprecations, mandated upgrades, and Cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
• Collaborate with InfoSec and infrastructure teams to ensure timely remediation of risks.
• Plan and prioritize engineering work that safeguards platform stability and compliance.

Automation & AI-Centred Engineering

• Identifying and implementing AI-assisted tooling for code generation, automated reviews, test generation, performance validation, and static analysis.
• Embedding AI code review capabilities where appropriate.
• Introducing preventative automated tooling so quality issues are detected before reaching production.
• Ensuring responsible use of AI through governance, human oversight, and engineering alignment.
• Measuring the impact of automation and AI adoption on quality, output, defect rates, and production stability.
• Driving continuous improvement in engineering practices through intelligent automation.

Strategic Collaboration & Partner Engagement

• Serve as the technical liaison between internal teams and external partners during engineering discussions.
• Collaborate with the Platform Architect and Delivery Manager to ensure cohesive planning and execution.
• Represent engineering in strategic forums and contribute to platform vision evolution.

You should consider applying if you have:

• BSc Degree Level, or similar, in mathematical, computing or engineering preferred
• Minimum of 5 years actively working with micro-service architectures in a full-stack capacity, including Azure technologies, programming languages such as C#, and databases languages such as T-SQL.
• Advantageous to have prior knowledge of Asset Management industry, especially relating to investment systems and processes
• Experience working with micro-service APIs, particularly in containerized implementations advantageous (e.g. Service Fabric).
• Strong experience with .Net Core preferable, including C#, ASP.NET Core etc.
• Strong experience with UI frameworks, e.g. Angular, React, Vue.
• Experience working in the Azure Cloud stack, including services like App Services, Function Apps, Redis, Service Fabric, API Manager, Azure SQL, CosmosDB, Databricks, Event Grid, Data Factory.
• Experience implementing automated test-driven development approach and continuous testing.
• Experience working with a variety of database technology such as SQL, No SQL, file storage.
• Experience with source control and automation tools, particularly the Azure DevOps suite, would be advantageous.

Some of the attributes we look for in a person are:

• Attention to detail and high level of accuracy.
• Strong problem-solving ability, a logical thinker and numerate.
• Willing to share knowledge and coach other team members, as well as learn from them.
• Strong collaboration ethic, with ability to work in teams from cross-functional disciplines.

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