Principal Full Stack .net Engineer at Investec

Description

• Investec is looking for a Principal Full Stack .NET Engineer / Platform Architect to join the Private Client Lending Technology team in Johannesburg, South Africa, working as part of our UK Offshore Technology function. This is a hands-on technical leadership role responsible for shaping, developing, and supporting core lending origination platforms and their integrations. The successful candidate will combine strong engineering capability with architectural thinking, ownership, problem-solving, and the ability to guide other engineers through complex delivery challenges.
• You will take ownership of complex technical problems across the full stack — from backend services built in C#, .NET, and Azure cloud services through to modern web frontends — and see them through from analysis to delivery. The role is as much about shaping the right solution as building it: operating comfortably in ambiguity, analysing business and technical challenges, helping to refine requirements, and designing pragmatic approaches that fit the wider lending platform. Hands-on engineering remains central, spanning both new solution delivery and the ongoing evolution of existing services.
• A core part of the role is establishing and maintaining technical direction. You will produce the solution designs, integration approaches, technical plans, and decision records that help the team understand what is being built, why, and how it fits the broader platform — forming a coherent plan from the input of others and keeping engineers aligned to a clear technical "north star". You will balance building new solutions with extending and hardening existing systems, ensuring resilience, performance, and regulatory compliance, while working within Agile squads alongside product owners, business analysts, and other engineers.
• As part of our UK Offshore Technology function, you will be based in South Africa and aligned to UK teams, collaborating closely with UK-based stakeholders and engineers across time zones. There are few local peers at this level of seniority, so you will need to be highly self-sufficient and self-motivated, comfortable being one of the most senior technical people in the room — someone others lean on for direction rather than someone who needs to be directed. From the outset you will provide technical and thought leadership through design, review, and mentoring, and over time you are expected to take on broader engineering leadership of the South African team.

Responsibilities

• Take ownership of complex problems across the full software development lifecycle — from analysis and architecture through to development, deployment, and ongoing support.
• Engage with stakeholders, business analysts, and product owners to shape ambiguous requirements into clear, well-architected solution designs.
• Own the design and delivery of core technical building blocks, services, and integrations that enable key lending business processes.
• Remain hands-on — building, testing, and deploying services and integrations using C#, .NET, and Azure — while setting the technical direction others follow.
• Produce and maintain solution designs, integration approaches, and decision records that give the team clear context on what is built, why, and how it fits the wider platform.
• Take accountability for the technical integrity, quality, and supportability of solutions, including investigating and resolving complex issues in production and test environments.
• Review the work of other engineers, providing constructive critique and clear technical guidance that raises the overall quality and consistency of delivery.
• Help set and uphold engineering standards and best practices, raising the technical bar across the team and ensuring solutions are well-documented, maintainable, and supportable.
• Mentor and grow other engineers — sharing knowledge, guiding them through complex problems, and building the technical capability of the South African team.
• Provide technical and thought leadership from the outset — setting design direction, communicating a clear technical "north star", and keeping engineers aligned to a coherent plan shaped from the input of others.
• Collaborate closely with UK-based teams as part of the Offshore Technology function and, as the role develops, take on broader engineering leadership of the South African team.

Experience, skill, and capability

• The ideal candidate is a Principal-level full-stack .NET engineer with deep C# expertise, strong architectural and solution-design capability, and hands-on Azure experience, allied to a good functional and commercial understanding of the Banking industry. They are comfortable operating in ambiguity, owning complex problems end to end, and shaping pragmatic solutions across distributed systems.
• Equally important is the appetite and aptitude to lead technically. Based in South Africa with few local peers at this level of seniority, the successful candidate will need to be highly self-sufficient and self-motivated — comfortable being one of the most senior technical people in the room, someone others lean on for direction rather than someone who needs to be directed. They will demonstrate strong communication skills, the ability to influence and build relationships across teams and geographies, and a track record of mentoring or guiding other engineers — providing the foundation to take on broader engineering leadership of the South African team as the role develops.

Core skills include:

• Deep proficiency in C# and modern Microsoft .NET technologies (.NET 8+), with the ability to set the technical direction others follow
• Full-stack development experience, including modern web frontends (JavaScript/TypeScript, React)
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, designing and building microservices and RESTful APIs, and architecting for resilience and failure
• Hands-on experience with Azure services (Functions, App Services, Service Bus, Logic Apps, API Management)
• Strong relational database experience (SQL Server) and exposure to NoSQL
• Strong commitment to software testing practices (unit, integration, and contract testing) and CI/CD pipelines
• Familiarity with Agile delivery frameworks (Scrum/Kanban)
• Ability to work effectively in a collaborative team environment

Other beneficial attributes include:

• Experience with event-driven development and messaging patterns (e.g. Azure Service Bus, Event Grid)
• Knowledge of containerization (Docker, Kubernetes/AKS) and Infrastructure as Code (Bicep, ARM, or Terraform)
• Familiarity with architectural patterns such as CQRS and Domain-Driven Design, and with observability practices (logging, metrics, and distributed tracing)
• Experience in financial services, lending, or mortgage products, ideally within a FinTech or SaaS environment
• Exposure to Dynamics 365 development (APIs, services, plug-ins) would be an advantage
• Previous technical leadership, team lead, or formal mentoring experience would be a strong advantage

Qualifications

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) – required (or willingness to obtain within the first three months)
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate – preferred
• BSc or equivalent degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related discipline