Software Engineering Manager (Supply Chain) at takealot.com

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

• Build and retain a high-caliber engineering team
• Build relationships through regular one on one conversations
• Remove roadblocks and interruptions to help the team perform
• Be involved with architectural and strategic planning with peers and senior developers
• Work with stakeholders to gather requirements, and manage expectations
• Support and develop the careers of members of the team
• Support and give direction to innovation in the team
• Present practical input for strategic technology decisions
• Stay up to date with industry trends, and standards
• Lead the Agile processes within the team
• Manage the roadmap for the team, playing a key role in prioritization
• Successfully see new projects to completion and launch new products while maintaining the existing code base.
• Facilitate discussions in the team and ensure a good design methodology is used on projects.
• Resolve conflict in the team when necessary
• Promote the achievements of the team
• Track and ensure team productivity is healthy using a metrics-based approach
• Track and ensure operational excellence in the team using a metrics-based approach
• Interview candidates for technical and organizational fit
• Drive innovation, vision, and strategy

The skills we need:

• Customer-centric
• Solutions and results-oriented 
• Natural leader
• Innovative problem solver 
• Curious thinker that understands technical topics beyond the average reader 
• Influencer that constantly grows the quality of their engineering team, through technical initiatives 
• Effective time management and organisational skills 
• Proven ability to develop and maintain positive working relationships 
• Must be comfortable with rapidly changing and/or loosely defined requirements that are refined over time 
• Skilled at active listening and capable of facilitating discussions 
• Strong communication skills with both internal team members and external business stakeholders 
• Strong initiative to find ways to improve solutions, systems, and processes 

Qualifications & Experience:

• Bachelor's Degree or Advanced Diploma in Computer Science, Mathematics or Engineering and 5 or more years of Software Development experience.
• In the event that a candidate does not have a Bachelor’s Degree or an Advanced Diploma (in Computer Science, Mathematics, or Engineering), an equivalent experience requirement must be met, which equates to a minimum of 8 years of Software Development experience.
• Minimum 2 years of line management experience. 
• Minimum 2 years experience as a technical lead on multiple projects, with a focus on high-quality output.
• Experience working within an agile team that is operationally hands-on, and an advocate of that culture.
• Experience with Open Source Operating Systems and technologies.
• Experience developing software in Python in a test-driven environment 
• A thorough understanding of computer science fundamentals, including object-oriented design and data structures and algorithms.
• SQL, and MySQL or Postgres experience in a high-load environment.
• Experience with vendor integrations.
• Significant technical experience and a proven track record of architectural ownership and understanding.
• Experience in developing distributed, high transactional and available systems.
• Experience working with GCP/AWS and/or other cloud platforms
• Experience with performance management. 
• Experience developing technical teams to improve quality and output. 
• A thorough understanding of software engineering practices and best practices, including agile software development, source code control systems and the use of software IDEs and development and testing tools.
• An understanding of software deployment tools, deployment processes and best practices.
• Experience developing software for a highly-transactional retail online platform beneficial 
• Experience working with Kafka beneficial 
• Experience working with Docker and/or Kubernetes beneficial 
• Experience with building RESTful API web services, Google Protocol Buffers and microservices beneficial.
• Experience working with Big Data: data volumes, variety and velocity beneficial.