Lead Python Software Engineer

About the role

We are looking for a senior engineer to drive the development of innovative fintech solutions that make financial services more accessible across Africa. In this hands‑on position you will lead technical decisions, mentor a small growing team and build scalable systems powering our insurance, telecoms and payments products. The role combines strategic impact with day‑to‑day coding in a fast‑moving, low‑legacy environment.

Key responsibilities

• Design and build scalable Python services that power our fintech products.
• Define and enforce engineering standards: code quality, testing, CI/CD and observability.
• Lead architecture decisions across services, data layers and integrations.
• Mentor engineers (initially 2–4) through pairing, code reviews and career growth.
• Own incident response and foster a post‑mortem culture for production systems.
• Collaborate with product, data and design teams to translate business problems into technical solutions.
• Participate in hiring and onboarding as the team scales.

Required profile

• 7+ years building production Python systems.
• 3+ years in a senior or lead engineering role.
• Proven record of mentoring engineers.
• Experience in fintech, telecoms or regulated industries (preferred).
• South African work authorisation and willingness to work onsite in Bryanston three days a week.

Required skills

• Python 3.11+
• FastAPI or Django
• PostgreSQL
• Redis
• Docker
• Kubernetes (or managed container platforms)
• AWS or Google Cloud
• CI/CD tools such as GitHub Actions or GitLab CI