Engineering Lead

Sabenza IT & Recruitment; South Africa; On-site; ZAR 1,200,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Job summary

Sabenza IT & Recruitment is seeking an Engineering Lead to bridge business vision with practical delivery, coordinating across product, architecture and engineering teams to turn ideas into working technology.

The role emphasizes strong technical fluency, stakeholder integration, and disciplined execution through the build phase, with responsibility spanning delivery readiness and governance across multiple workstreams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems or related field.
• 10+ years of experience in software development teams.
• Agile delivery certification – practical application preferred over theory.
• Proven track record leading large, multi-disciplinary engineering teams across complex enterprise programmes.
• Strong background in modern application architectures, including cloud-native and distributed systems, API-first and microservices.
• Demonstrated leadership across the full software development lifecycle, from design and build through to release, HyperCare, and stabilisation.
• Experience collaborating closely with DevSecOps, CI/CD pipelines, and production release governance.

Responsibilities

• Drive end-to-end technical delivery through the build phase, ensuring work is sequenced, controlled and aligned to agreed priorities, scope and delivery milestones.
• Coordinate Business Product Owners, Technical Product Owners, the Chief Architect and engineering teams to maintain delivery clarity, decision-making and momentum.
• Oversee the development, review and readiness of technical specification documents and supporting build artefacts before engineering execution starts.
• Manage delivery risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies and decisions across multiple workstreams and stakeholder groups.
• Provide governance, status reporting and escalation management to support quality delivery, issue resolution and timely decision-making.
• Act as the practical integration point between technical design intent and build execution, ensuring the build team has sufficient clarity to deliver.
• Translate business and product intent into a coordinated technical execution plan for the build team.
• Ensure technical requirements, specifications, dependencies, interfaces and acceptance criteria are sufficiently defined before build starts.
• Direct and coordinate build activities across development and supporting teams to deliver against scope, timeline and quality expectations.
• Facilitate alignment between architecture decisions, technical design, backlog priorities and engineering execution.
• Track progress against milestones and intervene where blockers, design gaps, resourcing issues or delivery risks arise.
• Support readiness for testing, release and implementation by ensuring build outputs are complete, controlled and traceable.

Skills

Agile delivery

Leadership

Systems thinking

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Job description

We’re looking for an Engineering Lead who’s part conductor, part translator, and full delivery force. This isn’t a pure “write code all day” gig — it’s the senior role that sits right in the middle of business ambition, product vision, architecture intent and the engineering team that has to turn it into working reality.

If you love being the practical bridge between “what we want to build” and “what actually gets built” — and you get a kick out of driving clarity, alignment and execution through the entire build phase — this is your stage.

Come lead the build. Make the complex feel controlled. Make the delivery feel inevitable.

Role Summary

Senior delivery role requiring strong technical fluency, stakeholder integration capability and disciplined execution through the build phase. Although titled as an Engineering Lead, the role carries broader responsibility for coordinating delivery readiness across business, product, architecture and build stakeholders. Leads the build phase of technology initiatives by aligning business, product, architecture and engineering stakeholders, ensuring technical specifications are delivery-ready, and driving the build team to execute against agreed scope, quality and timelines.

Responsibilities

• Drive end-to-end technical delivery through the build phase, ensuring work is sequenced, controlled and aligned to agreed priorities, scope and delivery milestones.
• Coordinate Business Product Owners, Technical Product Owners, the Chief Architect and engineering teams to maintain delivery clarity, decision-making and momentum.
• Oversee the development, review and readiness of technical specification documents and supporting build artefacts before engineering execution starts.
• Manage delivery risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies and decisions across multiple workstreams and stakeholder groups.
• Provide governance, status reporting and escalation management to support quality delivery, issue resolution and timely decision-making.
• Act as the practical integration point between technical design intent and build execution, ensuring the build team has sufficient clarity to deliver.
• Translate business and product intent into a coordinated technical execution plan for the build team.
• Ensure technical requirements, specifications, dependencies, interfaces and acceptance criteria are sufficiently defined before build starts.
• Direct and coordinate build activities across development and supporting teams to deliver against scope, timeline and quality expectations.
• Facilitate alignment between architecture decisions, technical design, backlog priorities and engineering execution.
• Track progress against milestones and intervene where blockers, design gaps, resourcing issues or delivery risks arise.
• Support readiness for testing, release and implementation by ensuring build outputs are complete, controlled and traceable.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems or related field preferred
• 10+ years of experience working in software development teams
• Agile delivery certification (e.g. Scrum, or equivalent) – practical application preferred over theory
• Proven track record leading large, multi‑disciplinary engineering teams across complex enterprise programmes
• Strong background in modern application architectures, including:Cloud‑native and distributed systemsAPI‑first and microservices architecturesEvent‑driven and integration‑heavy platformsMobile Architecture
• Demonstrated leadership across the full software development lifecycle, from design and build through to release, HyperCare, and stabilisation
• Experience collaborating closely with:
• Strong exposure to DevSecOps, CI/CD pipelines, and production release governance