Technical Lead

Purpose

We are seeking a passionate and experienced Tech Lead to join our technology team. As a Tech Lead, you will play a key role in driving technical direction, architecture and execution of projects, while mentoring and guiding a team of engineers. You will collaborate closely with other engineering leaders, product managers and stakeholders to efficiently deliver high-quality, scalable software solutions within the Zai payments platform.  

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership:

• Lead the technical design, architecture and delivery of software solutions in collaboration with other engineering leaders and senior engineers. 

• Maintain and extend existing APIs, services and customer facing applications, ensuring that technical debt is managed effectively while still delivering timely business value. 

• Ensure software is built to meet performance, scalability, reliability, and security standards. 

• Enforce coding best practices, guidelines and quality standards to ensure new and existing code is maintainable and well documented. 

• Evaluate new technologies and frameworks to modernize and enhance our product and processes.

• Provide thought leadership on how to handle legacy systems, ensuring they can evolve to meet new business needs while minimizing long-term risk.

Team Collaboration & Mentorship:

• Mentor and lead engineers within your team to continually improve engineering capability, manage individual performance, and foster wellbeing.

• Foster a collaborative and innovated team culture, ensuring effective communication and knowledge sharing.

• Assist in troubleshooting and resolving complex technical issues in a timely manner.

• Conduct code reviews and ensure high-quality code is being delivered by the team.

• Empower team members to take ownership of projects and grow their technical expertise.

Project Management:

• Work closely with product managers to support the development and prioritization of initiatives, by providing reliable technical assessments, advice, and estimates. 

• Break down large projects into manageable tasks and deliverables.

Process Improvement:

• Contribute to the evolution of the technology team’s development processes, tools, workflows and ways of working with other teams.  

• Identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in development processes and foster a culture of continuous improvement  

• Advocate for Agile methodologies.

Competencies

• Technical Expertise: Strong foundation in software development principles, design patterns and architecture. Demonstrates proficiency in core programming languages, tools, and frameworks, with the ability to quickly learn and adapt to new technologies.

• Leadership & Mentorship: Proven ability to lead and mentor teams, fostering a collaborative environment where team members feel supported, valued and motivated to achieve their goals. Capable of leading teams with a mix of local and offshore personnel. 

• Problem Solving: Ability to identify complex technical problems, analyse them systematically, and come up with practical, effective solutions. 

• Decision Making: Capable of taking a pragmatic approach to balancing competing priorities, such as addressing technical debt vs delivering business value. Takes a consultative, data-driven approach, ensuring relevant stakeholders are engaged in the decision-making process. 

• Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate and document technical concepts.

• Business Acumen: Understanding of business priorities and how technical decisions align with company goals. Ability to propose solutions that drive business outcomes while maintaining technical integrity. 

• Collaboration & Cross-functional Work: Comfortable working closely with product managers, QA, and other teams to ensure successful project delivery. 

• Adaptability: Able to pivot and adapt to change, shifting priorities, or unexpected challenges while maintaining focus.

• Quality Focus: Commitment to delivering high-quality, reliable software. Demonstrates a strong focus on testing, code reviews, and continuous improvement.

• Customer Focus: Strives to understand the needs and goals of customers and ensures that technical solutions are aligned with delivering value to them.

QUALIFICATIONS/SKILLS/EXPERIENCE:

Technical Skills:

• Strong proficiency in Ruby on Rails and Java. Go desirable.

• Experience in development of API-based / primarily backend systems.

• Experience in relational database design. 

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS) and DevOps tools

• Solid understanding of Agile software development methodologies.

• Familiar with micro-services and event-driven architectures. 

• Experience in software testing frameworks & CI/CD pipelines.

  
  

Experience:

• 5+ years of experience in software development, with at least 2 years in a lead or senior role. 

• Proven experience designing, building and scaling production-grade systems.

• Experience in leading technical teams and mentoring engineers.

• Strong background in designing system architecture and making technical decisions.

• Experience in FinTech and payments services desirable.

  
  

Soft Skills:

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.

• Ability to motivate and inspire a team, fostering a positive and productive work environment

• Strong problem solving and critical thinking skills

• Ability to handle multiple priorities

• Help drive the delivery of features and products, ensuring they are delivered on time and meet business goals.

• Monitor the progress of development tasks and provide regular updates to leadership.