Software Engineering Manager

Purpose

Leads a software engineering team with responsibility for people leadership technical direction and delivery execution. Ensures the team delivers highquality maintainable software aligned with business objectives upholds technical standards and develops engineering capability to support current and future organisational needs.
Location: Cape Town

Role Impact
Budgetary Responsibility
Moderate Understands and communicates teamlevel costs related to infrastructure licensing and staffing. Provides input into budget planning and costoptimisation opportunities. Supports expense tracking and communicates cost considerations to stakeholders.
Financial Impact
Moderate Decisions influence departmental budgets resource allocation vendor spend and operational efficiencies. Manages and mitigates financial risks within the teams scope.

Commercial
Ensures delivery of features and products that support business goals and customer needs while managing team efficiency and cost awareness to maximise value.
Operations
Drives operational excellence by establishing technical standards code quality frameworks and deployment processes. Ensures clear communication of commitments and progress to stakeholders.
Delivery
Owns predictable highquality delivery by setting realistic commitments coordinating with product and quality teams and maintaining transparent progress visibility.
People
Builds engineering capability through structured coaching mentorship performance management and fostering an inclusive growthoriented team culture.
Innovation
Identifies and implements improvements in tooling automation and engineering practices to enhance productivity and support adoption of emerging technologies.

Capabilities Required
Education

• Bachelors Degree in Computer Science Software Engineering or related field.
• Advanced Diploma or equivalent technical qualification acceptable with demonstrated management experience.

Experience

• 68 years of progressive software engineering experience including 23 years in a formal leadership or management role.
• Informal leadership experience (technical lead project lead senior engineer mentoring) considered with strong evidence of team impact.

Key Responsibilities

• Leads and manages team performance providing coaching mentorship and career development while ensuring accountability for delivery commitments.
• Owns delivery outcomes for assigned products/services managing prioritisation coordination and communication with product and technical stakeholders.
• Establishes technical direction and standards ensuring architectural decisions align with longterm strategy and balance quality with delivery timelines.
• Translates business priorities into clear technical execution plans in partnership with product management and stakeholders.
• Identifies and manages technical risks including technical debt testing gaps security concerns and performance issues.
• Coordinates with crossfunctional teams to manage dependencies resolve blockers and maintain predictable delivery.
• Monitors delivery performance and quality metrics providing visibility to leadership and enabling datadriven decisionmaking.
• Drives process tooling and quality improvements to enhance productivity and reduce manual effort.
• Participates in recruitment capability planning and talent management to ensure appropriate team skills and capacity.
• Collaborates with peer managers and engineering leadership on crossfunctional initiatives and technical standards.
• Owns production responsibility for team services ensuring operational health participating in incident response and prioritising stability.

Operating Network

• Head of Software Engineering
• Product Management
• Peer Engineering Managers
• Quality Assurance / Testing
• Architects / Technical Leads
• Finance
• Senior Engineers / Technical Leads
• HR
• Infrastructure / Operations
• Customers / Account Management (where applicable)
• Thirdparty integration partners
• Platform and tooling vendors

Skills Required

Leadership; Team Building; Coaching & Mentoring; Performance Management; Conflict Resolution; People Development; Stakeholder Management; Communication; Influencing; DecisionMaking; Strategic Thinking; Prioritisation; Problem Solving; Technical Leadership; Software Architecture; Code Quality; Technical Debt Management; Risk Management; Delivery Planning; Project Coordination; Process Improvement; Agile Methodology; CI/CD; Testing Frameworks; Accountability; Resilience; Adaptability; Critical Analysis; Vendor/Tool Evaluation.

Knowledge Requirements

• Broad knowledge of software engineering practices team leadership and delivery management.
• Advanced proficiency in agile methodologies code quality frameworks and technical debt management.
• Strong capability in coaching performance management and building highperforming engineering teams.
• Extensive experience in delivery management prioritisation frameworks dependency management and stakeholder communication.
• Demonstrated ability to guide architectural decisions balancing shortterm delivery with longterm sustainability.
• Advanced understanding of automation AIenabled tooling CI/CD testing frameworks and modern development practice.