Principal Engineer - Sandton

Catch; Gauteng; On-site; ZAR 1,200,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Job summary

Catch is seeking a Principal Engineer to be the technical authority for its software platform, providing coherence of vision, architecture, and implementation across multiple squads. Reporting to the Head of Tech, you will influence architecture decisions and guide teams while still contributing to code.

The role demands hands-on leadership with 8+ years in software development, 5+ years in Java, and a proven ability to drive technical direction and platform evolution.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering or related field.
• 8+ years software development experience with leadership experience.
• 5+ years hands-on Java in production.
• Senior technical voice across multiple teams; architecture reviews under pressure.
• Hands-on CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and GitHub deployment workflows.
• Experience with test-driven development and modern engineering practices.
• Experience introducing AI-assisted engineering into team workflows.

Responsibilities

• Technical direction and architecture across the team, setting standards and guardrails.
• Decide on implementation style and stack choices and enforce them.
• Evolve the platform with evidence-based growth and clear technical direction.
• Ensure coherence across squads and reuse patterns across the platform.
• Provide quality oversight of team leads' work and review major architectural decisions.
• Champion test-driven development and code review culture.
• Define standards across the broader stack and guide engineers.
• Support Head of Tech as trusted technical partner turning business ambition into technical excellence.

Skills

8+ years experience

Java expertise

CI/CD

Automated testing

GitHub workflows

AI in engineering

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

Salesforce

Apex

Job description

POSITION OVERVIEW

Our client is looking for a Principal Engineer to be the technical authority for their software platform, responsible for the coherence of their technical vision, architecture, and implementation across several squads that deliver independently. This is a technical role first: you'll still get into the code where it matters, and you'll be the person the team leads bring their hardest design problems to.

Reporting to the Head of Tech, the Principal Engineer will act as the most senior technical voice in the team, ensuring that as the team grows, the platform grows deliberately, with a clear technical direction that supports where the business wants to go.

Location: Johannesburg - 4 days a week in the Sandton office

Employment Type: Permanent, full-time

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Technical direction and architecture across the team, setting the standards, patterns, and technical guardrails developers build inside of.
• Implementation style and stack choices, deciding how the team builds, what they build with, and when to change either, and making those calls stick.
• Platform evolution, making considered, evidence-based decisions about how the platform should grow, and bringing the team along on those decisions.
• Technical coherence across squads, making sure the teams aren't drifting apart architecturally, and that patterns learned in one part of the platform get applied consistently across the rest.
• Quality oversight of the team leads' technical work, acting as a design partner to them and reviewing significant architectural decisions.
• Championing test-driven development, code review culture, and the standard of work the team is proud to put its name on.
• Technical breadth, defining standards and giving guidance across the broader stack, not just within a single platform.
• Acting as right-hand to the Head of Tech, trusted to turn business ambition into technical excellence

WHAT YOU BRING

EDUCATION

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field, with a strong academic record.

EXPERIENCE

• 8+ years’ experience in software development, with a track record of shaping how teams build, not only shipping code.
• 5+ years of hands-on Java experience in production environments.
• Experience acting as the senior technical voice across multiple teams, setting architecture, reviewing designs, and defending technical decisions under pressure.
• Hands-on experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and deployment workflows on GitHub.
• Experience with test-driven development and modern engineering practice.
• Practical experience introducing AI-assisted engineering into how teams work.

ADDED VALUE

• Hands-on Salesforce / Apex experience.
• Salesforce certifications: Platform Developer I, Platform Developer II, Application Architect, System Architect, or Technical Architect.

BONUS POINTS

• Experience with penetration testing and security-conscious engineering.
• Front-end development skills.
• Integration architecture and RESTful API design at scale.

COMPETENCIES

• Architecture decisions across the squads ladder up to a coherent technical strategy that you've authored and the team has bought into, with the platform evolving deliberately.
• Technical excellence is pervasive across the team; AI is being used effectively in how the team builds, and development velocity is increasing.
• The team leads treat you as the technical partner they bring their hardest design problems to, and their technical work is sharper because you're in it.
• You're a trusted partner to the Head of Tech, shaping the technology roadmap and helping the business make the right calls.