Senior Software Engineer (Lumkani) at Hollard Insurance

Role description:  

• As a senior full stack engineer, you will play an important role in driving the development of our IoT platform, policy management platform, and agent app. While architectural decisions and technical direction are made collaboratively within the team, your role will be to facilitate and guide these discussions, ensuring all voices are heard and the team reaches a well-informed consensus. 
• You’ll work closely with other developers to design, develop, and refine scalable, cohesive systems. Your focus will be on writing clean, maintainable code and leading collaborative discussions on the technical direction, while fostering a culture of shared ownership and open communication within the team. 
• Our tech stack is centred around AWS, Django, and Vue.js, which we’ve chosen for their power, scalability, and ability to handle dynamic, data-driven applications. Python serves as a versatile and reliable backend language with a strong developer community, making it ideal for our needs. We’re also excited about the elegance and rapid adoption of Vue.js, which we’ve embraced as our JavaScript framework of choice for building intuitive and responsive user interfaces. 
• Our platform supports an IoT system that deploys fire detectors in informal settlements across South Africa, preventing fires and providing a first-of-its-kind household insurance to residents in these areas. It also includes a backend for managing insurance agents who operate in these communities. In this role, you’ll be responsible for deploying new features to key systems such as our payment processing,  business intelligence (BI), and agent management backends. 
• This is a unique opportunity to work with a diverse range of technologies and take ownership of your contributions within a passionate and inclusive team. Your technical decisions will directly shape the future of our platform and have a significant impact on life-saving technology aimed at improving financial inclusion both in South Africa and globally. 

Required Knowledge and Experience    
Industry experience

• 8+ years of work experience in full stack development, with a proven track record of building and  maintaining scalable systems.
• Be able to demonstrate high-quality code you are proud of.

Soft skills 

• Be a natural problem solver with a proactive approach to identifying and addressing challenges.
• Be diligent, with strong attention to details such as naming conventions and code structure.
• Mentor and support junior and mid level developers, fostering a culture of collaboration, learning and growth within the team.
• Be excited about knowledge sharing and continuous learning.
• Be able to work autonomously.
• Strong communication and leadership skills, capable of making architectural decisions and guiding the technical direction of projects. 

Hard skills 

• Extensive experience with Python and Django.
• Experience with AWS (Cloudfront, S3, EC2) or similar.
• Deep understanding of HTML/CSS/JS, and understanding of the full stack from database to user interface.
• Demonstrate clean, testable, and maintainable code with a strong emphasis on long-term scalability.
• Have strong research skills, keeping up with the latest technologies and best practices. 

Educational Requirements    

• Bachelor’s degree and/or certificates in IT, Computer Science, or a related field