Engineering Lead

Colonist; Cape Town; Remote; ZAR 300 000 - 400 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading digital board game platform is seeking an Engineering Lead to manage technical complexity and drive architectural decisions. Join a fully remote team with flexible hours and a competitive salary, while impacting millions of players. Ideal candidates have 7+ years of development experience, strong leadership skills, and expertise in TypeScript, React, and Node.js.

Benefits

Unlimited vacation

Flexible hours

Yearly offsite

Work equipment provided

Monthly budget for productivity tools

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional software development experience.
• Proven experience leading or managing engineers.
• Strong judgment and decisiveness under uncertainty.

Responsibilities

• Architect a unified codebase for multi-platform support.
• Expand codebase to support multiple game titles.
• Mentor team members and help them reach mastery.

Skills

TypeScript

React

Node.js

WebSocket systems

System architecture

CI/CD improvement

Mentoring

Job description

Colonist Engineering Lead

Working Hours: We work asynchronously and value outcomes over hours

Location: Fully Remote, Anywhere in the world

Compensation

Competitive salary paid in USD. Negotiable range based on experience and location. Stock (own a piece of Colonist)

About Colonist

We're building the biggest digital board game platform on the internet.

Last year, our players spent 2 years playing 45 million games on our Settlers of Catan alternative.

We're a fully remote, asynchronous team spread across multiple continents, focused on crafting extremely polished digital board games that people truly love.

About The Role

As a Engineering Lead at Colonist, your mission is to own our increasing technical complexity by making sound architectural decisions, improving development processes, and raising the technical bar across the organization.

This is a high-impact leadership role for someone who thrives on systems thinking, architectural clarity and positively impacting millions of players.

What You'll Do

• Architect a unified codebase for multi-platform and multi-game support, ensuring seamless functionality across Web, Mobile, Discord, and Steam
• Expand and scale the codebase to support multiple game titles efficiently
• Evolve our TypeScript + Node.js + React + WebSocket systems for scalability, maintainability, and performance
• Shape our system design and infrastructure direction with long-term clarity in mind
• Identify and remove bottlenecks in CI / CD, testing, and deployment reliability

Mentor team members and help them reach mastery

• Raise technical standards by ensuring code quality, best practices, and documentation are maintained across projects

Build and maintain a high-performing team

• Translate company and product goals into clear engineering plans and deliverables
• Strengthen our engineering values, encourage ownership, and scale a culture of continuous learning

Requirements

• 7+ years of professional software development experience
• Proven experience leading or managing engineers
• Deep expertise in TypeScript, React, Node.js, and WebSocket systems
• Strong understanding of system architecture, scalability, and maintainability
• Experience improving CI / CD pipelines, release processes, and team workflows
• Clear, structured written communication (async collaboration is our norm)
• Demonstrated ability to mentor and coach others
• Proven ability to elevate software development teams' technical standards
• Strong judgment and decisiveness under uncertainty

Nice to Have

• Experience in real-time multiplayer or game backend systems
• Open-source contribution or technical community engagement
• Background in remote-first or async teams

Our Values at Colonist

We strongly adhere to these values in our team - if these resonate, then you'll love working here!

Dependability

We're self-driven players who deliver without needing supervision.

When we commit to something, we make it happen.

Ownership

We take full responsibility and go beyond our roles to improve Colonist.

Each of us acts like we own the company, because through our stock options, we do.

Clear Communication

In our remote environment, written communication is key.

We're direct, structured, and always keep our team in the loop.

Efficient Execution

We move fast and focus on impact. Instead of getting stuck on perfect solutions, we find practical ways forward and get things done.

Continuous Learning

We're curious problem solvers who love a challenge. We constantly seek new ideas, embrace feedback, and aren't afraid to change our minds when we're wrong.

Benefits and Compensation

Compensation

Competitive salary paid in USD. Stock (own a piece of Colonist)

Benefits

• Fully remote team spread across multiple time zones
• Flexible hours, we work asynchronously and value outcomes over hours
• Unlimited vacation
• Yearly offsite
• Work equipment provided
• Monthly budget for productivity tools

Growth

• Work directly impacts 5M+ yearly active players
• Rapid learning opportunities
• Work with exceptional colleagues on challenging projects
• Freedom to identify and solve problems
• Access to all company metrics and discussions
• Expect deep work and autonomy with clear expectations and accountability