Head of Software Engineering

Payment24; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 2,000,000 - 3,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Payment24 in Cape Town is seeking a Head of Engineering to lead the development department and be the senior technical face to our customers, including banks and major partners.

You will set technical standards, own delivery against commitments, manage SLA obligations on production support, and mentor leads to run their own teams. This role requires hands-on architectural judgment and a willingness to work face-to-face in the office five days a week.

Qualifications

• Led an engineering organisation of 30–40 people across multiple teams.
• Credible in architectural decision-making with Microsoft stack.
• Experience with enterprise customers and SLA-driven delivery.
• Willing to relocate to Cape Town if not already based there.
• Fintech, payments or banking domain experience is advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Be the senior technical face to customers; lead architecture reviews.
• Lead the development department; set technical standards and delivery.
• Own SLA obligations and production support; mentor junior leads.
• Inherit CEO mandate to raise department standards and impact.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic thinking

Stakeholder management

Delivery management

Tools

Microsoft stack (C#/.NET, SQL Server, Azure)

Job description

Payment24 · Cape Town · Permanent, full-time · Reports to the CEO

When someone fills a fleet vehicle for Abu Dhabi National Oilco, BP, Astron Energy, TotalEnergies or Puma, or a bank issues a fuel card in a market you've never visited, there's a reasonable chance the platform underneath is ours — and that it was built in Cape Town.

Payment24 builds white-label fuel payment, fleet management and loyalty infrastructure for fuel retailers and banks. We've been at it since 2013. Our customers include ADNOC, Astron Energy, ABSAM BP, TotalEnergies, Standard Bank, Puma, Europcar, Imperial and SA Taxi.

Our platform runs across five continents, supported from offices in the USA, Geneva, Panama and Kenya. We integrate deep into forecourt site systems — the unglamorous, high-stakes layer where money actually moves.

We're hiring a Head of Engineering to lead the department that builds it.

What the role actually is

Two things, roughly half and half.

The first is being the senior technical face of Payment24 to our customers. You'll front architecture reviews and solution workshops with banking and fuel-major technical stakeholders, own the technical relationship, and handle the escalations and due-diligence conversations that come with selling into regulated financial services. Most Heads of Engineering never get near a customer. You'll be in the room with tier-one banks, and the architecture will be yours to defend.

The second is leading the development department:, technical leads and architects, working alongside our Head of Delivery and Principal Solutions Architect. You'll set the technical standard, own delivery against commitments, own our SLA obligations on production support, and develop the leads beneath you into people who can run their own teams.

You're not taking tickets. But you're not leaving the technology behind either — you'll own the architecture, read the code when it matters, and be expected to challenge a design on its merits rather than on org chart.

Where we are honest with you

This is a buildup of a function that matters enormously to the business. The team is capable and there's real product underneath them, but the department needs a leader who can raise the standard and hold it. You'd be inheriting a genuine mandate from the CEO to do that, with the authority and the executive backing to match. If you want a machine that already runs itself, this isn't it. If you've been waiting for a department to put your stamp on, it is.

What we're looking for

• You've led an engineering organisation of roughly this scale — minimum 30-40 people across multiple teams — and can show what changed under you.
• You're credible in the Microsoft stack (C#/.NET, SQL Server, Azure), current enough to make and defend architectural calls, not just chair the meeting where they're made.
• You've led senior technical conversations with enterprise customers and held the room when those conversations were difficult.
• You've run delivery against real commitments and operated in an SLA-driven support environment.
• People who've worked for you would work for you again. This one is not negotiable.
• You're in Cape Town, or ready to move here.

Fintech, payments or banking experience is a strong advantage, as is experience with high-availability production systems serving enterprise customers. Neither is a hard requirement — we'd rather have the right leader and teach the domain.

The practical details

Cape Town, office-based, five days a week. We're deliberate about this: a department being rebuilt needs its leader in the room with it, and half this role is conversations that go better face to face.

Remuneration is market-related and benchmarked at senior leadership level, with the package built around the individual. We're not going to lose the right person over money, and we'll have that conversation openly and early.