Lead Software Engineer

Humankind; Gauteng; On-site; ZAR 1,000,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Job summary

Humankind in South Africa seeks a senior software engineering leader to design, build and deploy end-to-end solutions across front-end, back-end, APIs and databases. You will provide technical direction, conduct code reviews and mentor a mature engineering team in a fast-paced DevOps environment.

The role emphasizes secure-by-design practices, modern AI-assisted development tools and delivery of AI-powered features with a strong focus on architecture, scalability and observability across

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology or related field.
• 10+ years' professional software engineering experience, with strong Full Stack development exposure.
• 3 years' experience in Lead or Senior Engineering capacity.
• Proven experience providing technical direction, conducting code reviews and mentoring developers.
• Strong hands-on experience across front-end, back-end, APIs and databases.
• Experience with modern back-end technologies such as .NET/C#, Node.js, Java/Spring.
• Strong front-end experience with Angular, React/Next.js, Vue/Nuxt, or Svelte.
• Strong TypeScript and modern JavaScript (ES2022+) experience.
• HTML5, CSS3, responsive design and component-driven architecture.
• Experience with state-management frameworks such as NgRx, Redux, Pinia or Zustand.
• Experience with modern front-end tooling such as Vite, Webpack, npm or pnpm.
• Experience with cloud platforms, particularly Microsoft Azure and/or AWS.
• Strong experience with Docker, Kubernetes, AKS or EKS.
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices.
• Strong Git and modern software development workflow experience.
• Experience with relational and/or non-relational databases such as SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis or DynamoDB.
• Experience designing and consuming REST, GraphQL and/or gRPC APIs.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, microservices and event-driven architectures.
• Experience with automated testing across unit, integration, API and end-to-end testing.
• Strong understanding of secure software development and OWASP principles.
• Experience working within Agile/Scrum or Kanban environments.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test and deploy end-to-end solutions across front-end, back-end, API and database layers.
• Provide technical leadership, architecture guidance and hands-on development.
• Conduct code reviews, pair programming and technical mentoring.
• Establish and maintain coding, testing and engineering standards.
• Design scalable and maintainable software architectures and API solutions.
• Drive modern Agile and DevOps practices, including CI/CD, automated testing and observability.
• Work closely with Product, Business Analysis, QA and DevOps teams to translate business requirements into effective technical solutions.
• Mentor Senior, Intermediate and Junior Software Developers and support their technical development.
• Identify and address technical debt, vulnerabilities and production incidents.
• Champion secure-by-design principles and applicable compliance requirements.
• Support technical interviews, onboarding and engineering capability development.
• Promote responsible and effective use of AI-assisted development tools.
• Contribute to the design and delivery of AI-powered features using modern LLM technologies.
• Maintain technical documentation, architecture diagrams, API specifications and runbooks.

Skills

Full stack

Technical leadership

CI/CD

Docker

Kubernetes

Azure/AWS

REST/GraphQL

Frontend frameworks

Databases

Security OWASP

Agile/Scrum

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/SE/IT

Tools

Git

Terraform

Docker

Kubernetes

Webpack/Vite

VS Code

Job description

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test and deploy end-to-end solutions across the front-end, back-end, API and database layers.
• Provide technical leadership, architecture guidance and hands-on development.
• Conduct code reviews, pair programming and technical mentoring.
• Establish and maintain coding, testing and engineering standards.
• Design scalable and maintainable software architectures and API solutions.
• Drive modern Agile and DevOps practices, including CI/CD, automated testing and observability.
• Work closely with Product, Business Analysis, QA and DevOps teams to translate business requirements into effective technical solutions.
• Mentor Senior, Intermediate and Junior Software Developers and support their technical development.
• Identify and address technical debt, vulnerabilities, performance issues and production incidents.
• Champion secure-by-design principles and applicable compliance requirements.
• Support technical interviews, onboarding and engineering capability development.
• Promote responsible and effective use of AI-assisted development tools.
• Contribute to the design and delivery of AI-powered features using modern LLM technologies.
• Maintain technical documentation, architecture diagrams, API specifications and runbooks.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology or a related field.
• 10+ years' professional software engineering experience, with strong Full Stack development exposure.
• At least 3 years' experience in a Lead or Senior Engineering capacity.
• Proven experience providing technical direction, conducting code reviews and mentoring developers.
• Strong hands-on experience across front-end, back-end, APIs and databases.
• Experience with one or more modern back-end technologies such as:
  • .NET / C#
  • Node.js
  • Java / Spring
• Strong front-end experience with one or more of:
  • Angular
  • React / Next.js
  • Vue / Nuxt
  • Svelte
• Strong TypeScript and modern JavaScript (ES2022+) experience.
• Strong understanding of HTML5, CSS3, responsive design and component-driven architecture.
• Experience with state-management frameworks such as NgRx, Redux, Pinia or Zustand.
• Experience with modern front-end tooling such as Vite, Webpack, npm or pnpm.
• Experience with cloud platforms, particularly Microsoft Azure and/or AWS.
• Strong experience with Docker, Kubernetes, AKS or EKS.
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices.
• Strong Git and modern software development workflow experience.
• Experience with relational and/or non-relational databases such as SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis or DynamoDB.
• Experience designing and consuming REST, GraphQL and/or gRPC APIs.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, microservices and event-driven architectures.
• Experience with automated testing across unit, integration, API and end-to-end testing.
• Strong understanding of secure software development and OWASP principles.
• Experience working within Agile/Scrum or Kanban environments.

AI & Emerging Technology Experience

A strong understanding of AI-assisted software engineering is required, including practical experience with tools such as:

• GitHub Copilot
• Claude Code
• Cursor
• ChatGPT

Experience using AI tools for coding, refactoring, debugging, code reviews, test generation and technical documentation will be highly advantageous.

Experience building AI-powered production applications is also highly desirable, particularly exposure to:

• OpenAI / Azure OpenAI
• Anthropic Claude
• AWS Bedrock
• Prompt engineering
• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Embeddings and vector databases
• Function/tool calling
• AI agents
• AI feature evaluation

Advantageous Experience

• Experience within financial technology, banking, financial services or another regulated environment.
• Experience working with high-availability production systems.
• Relevant Azure or AWS certifications.
• Agile/Scrum or SAFe certifications.
• Experience with accessibility standards such as WCAG 2.1 AA.
• Experience with performance optimisation and Core Web Vitals.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code, particularly Terraform or Bicep.
• Experience with observability, logging, metrics and distributed tracing.

Key Competencies

• Technical Leadership
• Strategic Thinking
• Strong Problem-Solving and Decision-Making
• Accountability and Ownership
• Emotional Intelligence
• Excellent Communication
• Mentoring and Coaching Ability
• Innovation and Continuous Improvement
• Strong Engineering Judgement
• Ethics, Integrity and Security Awareness

Why This Opportunity?

You will work with modern technologies across Full Stack Engineering, Cloud, DevOps and Artificial Intelligence, while helping develop the technical capability of a broader engineering team.