Hands-On Principal AI Software Engineer

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

Job summary

Sabenza IT & Recruitment in Johannesburg, South Africa, seeks a senior software engineer with 20+ years of experience who still codes daily and thrives in AI-native environments. This hands-on leadership role combines architecture with production delivery across cloud, backend, web, mobile and AI.

You’ll design and ship enterprise-grade systems, define architectures, mentor engineers and evaluate emerging technologies.

Qualifications

• 20+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field (preferred).
• Extensive experience building cloud-native applications on Azure, AWS and/or Google Cloud.
• Deep knowledge of modern software architecture, APIs, distributed systems, DevSecOps, CI/CD and secure software engineering.
• Hands-on experience with multi-agent AI systems, Edge AI and On-device AI.
• Proven ability to build intelligent applications using LLMs and modern AI platforms.
• Experience developing native mobile applications using Swift and/or Kotlin.
• Experience with cross-platform frameworks (Flutter, React Native or .NET MAUI).

Responsibilities

• Design and build enterprise-grade software solutions from concept through to production.
• Define architecture across cloud, backend, web, AI and mobile platforms.
• Develop production-quality software using AI-assisted engineering workflows.
• Build intelligent applications powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) and modern AI platforms.
• Design and develop native mobile applications (iOS & Android) and cross-platform solutions.
• Partner with clients and engineering teams to solve complex technical challenges.
• Mentor senior engineers and raise engineering standards through hands-on technical leadership.
• Evaluate and introduce emerging technologies that improve engineering capability and business outcomes.
• Continue coding, prototyping and experimenting with new technologies as part of daily work.

Skills

20+ years software engineering

Cloud-native architectures

AI-native engineering

Mobile development (Swift/Kotlin)

Cross-platform frameworks (Flutter, RN

DevSecOps CI/CD

Mentoring engineers

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / Information Systems

Tools

Azure

AWS

Google Cloud

Job description

Sabenza IT & Recruitment in Johannesburg, South Africa, seeks a senior software engineer with 20+ years of experience who still codes daily and thrives in AI-native environments. This hands-on leadership role combines architecture with production delivery across cloud, backend, web, mobile and AI.

You’ll design and ship enterprise-grade systems, define architectures, mentor engineers and evaluate emerging technologies.