Founded in 2007, Softcom is on a mission to connect people and businesses with meaningful innovation. The focus of this vision is on the African continent and they want to be at the center of any endeavor that improves the quality of learning, work and how we live through innovation. They have enabled over 10 million people around the world through platforms built by them. They are heavily engrossed with improving lives and businesses by developing solutions in human identification and verification with a goal of building an infrastructure that enables businesses serve and reach more customers, Enabling access to financial services for all, improving knowledge to help develop human capital and also devising solutions around data to help businesses and individuals make smarter decisions.
They are constantly building technology that connects people and add value that will transform their lives and businesses.
About The Role
Softcom is Looking to hire a VP, Engineering for their payments division. You will be the lead on product execution, development, availability and technical support among other things for softcom’s payment products. You will exercise oversight on o Technology Strategy, Innovation, Engineering Execution, Software Development, Systems Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science & Analytics, IT Administration, IT Security & Infrastructure.
What do you need to be considered successful?
You will develop and execute the short, medium and long term strategic plan for technology, product development, deployment, and management. You will also be a key contributor to Softcom’s planning process for digital/product innovation. As a member of the management team, you will also be responsible for recruiting and developing high performing teams, leading Softcom’s growing payment engineering team towards high performance and velocity, sustainability, quality & excellence. You will also be responsible for:
Technology and Business Strategy
- Making key contributions to the formulation of the company’s business and technology strategies that will help scale product development and drive continued innovation.
- Contributing to the formulation and implementation of market strategy, customer acquisition and business development.
- Proactively advising the senior level team on the emerging technologies and digital trends that are most relevant to the company’s goals and evolving needs.
- determining investment parameters, priorities and risks for payment technology initiatives to maximize the return on investment.
- Leading the strategy for technology platforms, partnerships and external relationships.
Technology Operations
- Overseeing all operations including but not limited to Engineering, Design, Data Science, Security & Infrastructure and Business Intelligence.
- Developing and leading a collaborative and agile software development approach that improves velocity, while maintaining a strong focus on both quality and scalability.
- Directing the design, planning, implementation, and maintenance of the computing infrastructure that supports the company’s operations and business applications.
- Establishing metrics for managing Engineering effectiveness and for measuring its impact on the business.
- Establishing a comprehensive enterprise information security program to ensure the integrity, confidentiality and availability of relevant data.
- Identifying emerging technology trends and ensuring that the company is leveraging them when appropriate to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and drive value.
- Establish and enforce technology policies, processes, portfolio management, development standards and methodologies
Current Tech Stack
Back-End: NodeJs (JavaScript, TypeScript) , MongoDB, ExpressJs and GO lang
Front-End: React and Redux
Mobile: Kotlin (Android), Java (Android), Swift (iOS) and Objective-C (iOS)
DevOps: Redis, RabbitMQ, Neo4j and AWS and Elastic
Leadership & Team Development
- Inspiring, leading and nurturing the Softcom engineering team.
- Ensuring, on an ongoing basis, that current and planned technical architecture, investments and solutions are aligned with Softcom’s business objectives.
- Preparing and managing engineering’s operational budgets that meet prevailing objectives and constraints.
- Ensuring that the organization has strong systems analysis and project management skills, and the ability to execute business-critical projects within agreed deadlines.
- Developing and maintaining a plan that provides for succession and continuity in the most critical IT management positions.
- Providing a face for the company’s technical vision, by engaging in speaking opportunities, conferences, media activities, etc. in alignment with the company's strategy to build a strong online presence and brand internationally.
- Partner with business leaders to deliver on product solutions and enhancements in the market and work with the VP of products to create roadmaps.
- Lead and manage the Software Development and engineering teams to deliver software, infrastructure and architecture that meets the needs of our clients.
- Create, implement and maintain a continuous improvement plan for software development and IT infrastructure, while supporting the product teams to meet current and future client needs.
- Hire, develop, evaluate and retain a highly-qualified team of engineering professionals.
- Foster the Softcom culture and values in Engineering, acting as a mentor to team members.
- Develop and maintain a plan that provides for succession and continuity in the most critical engineering management positions
How important are you to the bottomline
This is the highest technology executive position and mastery of this role culminates into softcom being able to build reliable, efficient and scalable payment products while ensuring that they are able to meet both present and future client needs. You are the sole driver of softcoms payment product and will be responsible for the growth and responsiveness of the product to customer needs.
The Biggest Problem Solving duties on the job
You will have the exciting challenge of turning the payment’s engineering team at Softcom into a well-oiled agile engine that is able to effectively deliver products while casting an eye on the short and long term goals of the team and product. Pilot the building of software that is responsive to customer needs and also nurturing the software engineering team at Softcom.
What do you need to have done in your career?
- BSc. and Masters degree from reputable universities in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Management, Data Science, Mathematics or a similar related field.
- 8+ years of experience in Software Development, Product and Engineering-related roles with a minimum of 5 years managerial experience.
- Strong software development, project management, process development and resource management expertise.
- Experience developing and supporting mission-critical applications and complex business technology solutions.
- Deep expertise employing SDLC methodologies including agile and scrum.
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills (both oral and written) with an ability to articulate ideas to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Passionate, driven individual who achieves results through teamwork and collaboration.
- Knowledge and experience in developing, implementing and using standardized methodologies, frameworks, SOPs, templates, etc for the achievement of team objectives.
- Leader of self with a capacity to make things happen with minimal supervision and direction.
- Ability to deal with confidential or sensitive information in a discreet and professional manner.
What do you stand to gain?
- Contribute to the development of infrastructure that transforms lives and business within Africa.
- Create opportunities for financial Access
- Competitive remuneration