Lead Infrastructure, Systems And Integration Engineer (South Africa) at Genesis Analytics

ROLE DESCRIPTION:

• The Principal Software Architect provides strategic technical direction and architectural oversight across DSU squads, ensuring all software solutions are modular, secure, and standards-based. As a bridge between the Head of Technology and engineering squads, this role translates DSU’s architectural principles into real-world systems, enabling squads to build scalable and interoperable government platforms using open-source technologies. This is a hands-on technical leadership position that balances vision, architecture design, and practical delivery.

Responsibilities:

As a Principal Software Architect, you will:

• Strategically lead technical direction and architectural oversight for DSU engineering squads.
• Define and maintain the technical architecture for DSU platforms, ensuring modularity, reusability, open APIs, and alignment with global open standards.
• Mentor and guide front-end and back-end engineers on best practices in microservices, APIs, deployment, and integration patterns.
• Ensure seamless interoperability between various DSU systems (e.g., Digital ID, Payments, Data Exchange, GOV.ZA) through coherent architecture.
• Contribute to and enforce DSU’s internal architecture and technology decision-making framework, including preferred stacks, tooling, documentation, and review processes.
• Rapidly prototype complex system components or integration layers to reduce risk and accelerate delivery.
• Conduct peer reviews and architectural walkthroughs to ensure code quality, security, and adherence to architectural standards.
• Collaborate with the DevOps team to ensure CI/CD pipelines, observability, and deployment practices are architecture-aligned.
• Shape the strategy for evaluating, reusing, and contributing to open-source tools and libraries relevant to DSU systems.
• Ensure adherence to the UNDP DPI safeguards as outlined here: https://www.dpi-safeguards.org/ 

Key Deliverables:

• Architecture Blueprints: Modular architecture maps for each DPI initiative and a DSU-wide integration reference architecture.
• Technical Decision Records (TDRs): Lightweight documentation of key architectural choices and trade-offs made in collaboration with squads.
• Interoperability Standards: Working definitions for APIs, authentication flows (OAuth2/OpenID Connect), data schemas, and integration protocols across initiatives.
• Developer Reference Templates: Shared starter kits, CI/CD scaffolding, boilerplate APIs, and common service components for reuse across squads.
• Security-by-Design Patterns: Recommended approaches for encryption, audit logging, secrets management, and threat modeling in DSU systems
• Squad Support Logs: A summary of squad-level architectural support, including facilitated decisions, resolved blockers, and addressed technical debt.

Requirements
QUALIFICATIONS:

• Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or an equivalent technical discipline.
• 8+ years of hands-on software engineering experience, including 3+ years in architecture or senior technical lead roles.
• Proven experience designing and implementing large-scale, modular, service-oriented systems.
• Proven experience designing and integrating modular APIs using REST and GraphQL. This includes expertise in API gateways, schema documentation, versioning best practices, cloud-native architecture, authentication protocols (OAuth2, OpenID Connect), and DevOps pipelines.
• Experience working in agile teams delivering digital government, civic tech, or open source-based public platforms.
• Understanding the public sector would be advantageous.

Skills:

• Modern Software Architecture: Deep experience with microservices, API-first design, containerization, and stateless systems.
• Open Source and Standards: Familiarity with open-source frameworks, modular integration patterns, and relevant standards (W3C VC, JSON-LD, AsyncAPI/OpenAPI).
• Technical Communication: Ability to translate architectural concepts into actionable guidance and clear diagrams or documentation.
• Code Proficiency: Hands-on coding skills in at least two of the following: Python, Node.js, Go, Java, or an equivalent open-source language.
• Infrastructure Familiarity: Competence with AWS/Azure/GCP environments, Terraform, Kubernetes, and GitOps patterns.
• Collaborative Leadership: Comfortable coaching others, facilitating cross-squad alignment, and leading technical workshops or design sessions.