Developer Experience Engineer (George Western Cape, On-site) at Badger Holdings (Pty) Ltd

What You’ll Do

You’ll design, build, and continuously improve the developer platform and experience across the organisation:

• Implement and maintain Backstage as our internal developer portal
• Build and maintain the service catalogue (visibility, ownership, discoverability)
• Create golden path templates so new services can be created in minutes, not days
• Design and maintain software templates that enforce standards without slowing teams down
• Build self-service capabilities (environment provisioning, secrets, config management)
• Implement TechDocs so documentation lives with code and stays relevant
• Create developer productivity dashboards and track meaningful metrics
• Gather feedback and turn developer pain points into real platform improvements
• Run enablement sessions and training to drive adoption
• Engineering Contribution (Non-Negotiable)

You are an engineer first:

• Contribute to software development and platform engineering tasks, including coding, debugging, and optimisation
• Build and maintain internal tools, scripts, and services that improve developer productivity
• Support the development of APIs, services, and automation tooling
• Collaborate on production-quality code, reviews, and engineering standards
• Assist in modernising legacy systems where developer experience intersects with core engineering
• Participate in code reviews, testing, and continuous improvement practices

Requirements

What You Bring

• 3+ years software development experience
• Experience working on developer platforms, tooling, or internal engineering systems
• Exposure to Backstage or similar platforms (Port, Cortex, OpsLevel)
• Strong TypeScript and React skills
• Solid understanding of developer workflows and SDLC practices
• Ability to write clear, useful technical documentation
• Strong problem-solving mindset with a focus on removing friction at scale

Education

• Degree or Diploma in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or a related technical field
• Equivalent hands-on experience building developer tooling or platforms will be considered

Advantageous:

• Certifications in cloud platforms, DevOps, or developer tooling (Azure preferred)

Nice to Have

• Experience building CLI tools or VS Code extensions
• Familiarity with the Backstage plugin ecosystem
• Experience measuring developer productivity (DORA metrics, developer insights)
• Training or facilitation experience
• Experience driving platform adoption across engineering teams