Remote Director of Engineering — Scale Fintech Platforms

Placements24; Cape Town; Hybrid; ZAR 1,800,000 - 3,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Salary & equity

Health insurance

Paid time off

Professional development

Home office stipend

Remote-friendly hours

Team events

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a Director of Engineering for a fully remote fintech startup. You will shape technical direction, mentor engineers, and drive scalable software in a remote-first environment.

You will build and scale distributed teams, own architectural decisions, and partner with product leadership to deliver high-impact products. The role requires deep cloud-native experience, strong leadership, and a track record of delivering robust systems.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software engineering with at least 5 years in a leadership role.
• Experience building cloud-native, distributed systems.
• Proven track record scaling complex software systems.
• Strong remote leadership and communication skills.
• Fintech experience is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership and strategic direction for all software development activities.
• Build, manage, and mentor high-performing, distributed engineering teams, fostering a positive and productive remote work culture.
• Oversee the entire software development lifecycle, from architecture and design to implementation, testing, deployment, and maintenance.
• Drive the adoption of best practices in software engineering, including agile methodologies, CI/CD, automated testing, and code quality standards.
• Collaborate closely with product management, design, and other stakeholders to define product roadmaps and technical strategies.
• Ensure the scalability, reliability, and security of the platform through thoughtful architectural decisions and infrastructure planning.
• Manage technical debt and proactively identify opportunities for system improvements and refactoring.
• Champion a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and knowledge sharing within the engineering organization.
• Develop and manage the engineering budget, including resource allocation and technology investments.
• Conduct regular performance reviews and provide career development guidance for engineering team members.

Skills

Leadership

Remote team management

System design

Cloud architecture

DevOps

Communication

Agile methodologies

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/Engineering

Tools

AWS

Azure

GCP

Kubernetes

Docker

CI/CD

Job description

Placements24 is seeking a Director of Engineering for a fully remote fintech startup. You will shape technical direction, mentor engineers, and drive scalable software in a remote-first environment.

You will build and scale distributed teams, own architectural decisions, and partner with product leadership to deliver high-impact products. The role requires deep cloud-native experience, strong leadership, and a track record of delivering robust systems.