Job Title:Senior Product Engineer

Manpowergroup; Durban North; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,400,000; Full time

Job summary

ManpowerGroup in KwaZulu Natal seeks a Senior Product Engineer to design, build and scale backend systems and APIs for enterprise clients. You will own features end-to-end, from concept to production, and ensure reliability, security and performance.

You will work with Python or TypeScript (Node.js), design APIs, and deploy LLM-powered capabilities. You’ll mentor engineers and collaborate with product and client teams to translate needs into robust solutions.

Qualifications

• At least 5 years of backend engineering experience in production systems.
• Strong programming skills in Python or TypeScript (Node.js).
• Experience designing APIs and integrating third-party systems.
• Knowledge of PostgreSQL or similar relational databases and data modelling.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, logging and monitoring.
• Proven experience deploying LLM-powered features into production.
• Experience with queues and event-driven architectures.
• Ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Mentoring or leading junior engineers.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and maintain scalable backend systems, APIs and third‑party integrations.
• Develop and optimise AI-powered applications and agent orchestration systems.
• Take ownership of features from design through deployment, monitoring and improvement.
• Ensure system reliability, performance, security and uptime across production.
• Scope technical requirements with enterprise clients and support proofs-of-concept.
• Translate client needs into practical technical solutions and communicate decisions clearly.
• Monitor deployed AI agents, evaluate performance and report outcomes.
• Mentor junior implementation engineers and contribute to engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with internal teams to feed client insights into product development.

Skills

Backend engineering

API design

Python

TypeScript

PostgreSQL

Tools

Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP)

CI/CD pipelines

Logging/Monitoring

LLM deployment tooling

Job description

• Design, build and maintain scalable backend systems, APIs and third-party integrations.
• Develop and optimise AI-powered applications and agent orchestration systems.
• Take ownership of features from initial design through to deployment, monitoring and ongoing improvement.
• Ensure system reliability, performance, security and uptime across production environments.
• Work with enterprise clients to scope technical requirements, define success criteria and support proof-of-concept projects.
• Translate client needs into practical technical solutions and communicate architectural decisions clearly to non-technical stakeholders.
• Monitor deployed AI agents, evaluate their performance and report on business value and outcomes.
• Mentor junior implementation engineers and contribute to best practices across the engineering team.
• Collaborate with internal teams to feed client insights and technical learnings back into product development.
• At least 5 years’ experience in backend engineering, building and maintaining production systems.
• Strong programming skills in Python or TypeScript (Node.js).
• Proven experience designing APIs and integrating third-party systems.
• Good knowledge of PostgreSQL or similar relational databases, including data modelling and query optimisation.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, logging and monitoring.
• Demonstrated experience building and deploying LLM-powered features or applications into production.
• Experience working with queues and event-driven architecture.
• Ability to explain technical concepts and trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders.
• Previous experience mentoring or leading junior engineers.

Advantageous Experience

• Experience with the WhatsApp Business API, voice AI or telephony integrations.
• Practical knowledge of AI agent orchestration, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) or LLM evaluation.
• Familiarity with Supabase or workflow automation tools such as n8n.
• Experience in insurance, telecommunications or financial services.
• Understanding of POPIA and the responsible handling of personal information within AI systems.
• Exposure to technical scoping, client consultations or pre-sales activities.

Why Consider This Opportunity?

• Work on cutting-edge AI solutions used by enterprise clients.
• Take ownership of meaningful product and architectural decisions.
• Combine hands-on engineering with client collaboration and problem-solving.
• Help shape the future of AI-powered business processes.
• Play a key role in developing talent and influencing engineering best practices.

If you’re passionate about backend engineering, enjoy solving complex technical challenges and want to build AI solutions that make a tangible difference, we’d love to hear from you.

Create a job alert for this search

Job Title:Senior Product Engineer • KwaZulu Natal, KZN - North Coast