Johannesburg: Head of Software Engineering (JHB Hybrid)

About the Role

A provider of tailored Financial Solutions seeks a highly experienced hands-on technical leader to fill the role of its next Head of Software Engineering. This is an opportunity to shape how they build software, bringing structure, consistency, and a strong DevOps culture to a .NET / C# environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the full lifecycle from requirements and planning through development, QA, release, and ongoing application support.
• Establish and strengthen repeatable, well-documented SDLC processes, bringing greater consistency and rigor across the lifecycle.
• Provide clear, consistent reporting across the entire SDLC.
• Drive delivery using Agile/Scrum, partnering with the scrum master to keep ceremonies effective and outcome focused.
• Design, build, and continuously improve CI/CD pipelines to automate build, integration, and deployment.
• Mature release management into predictable, low-risk deployments with rollback capability and clear change control.
• Introduce infrastructure-as-code, environment standardization, and configuration management across dev, test, and production.
• Own and implement the Unit Testing practice, embedding it as a core part of how the team builds software.
• Define a comprehensive test strategy spanning Unit, Integration, Regression, and Automated Testing.
• Lead the two Test Engineers and embed quality gates into the pipeline rather than treating QA as a final step.
• Drive measurable improvements in defect detection, test coverage, and release quality.
• Own production reliability for both legacy and modern applications, including incident response and root-cause analysis.
• Establish monitoring, alerting, and support processes that reduce downtime and mean-time-to-resolution.
• Manage, mentor, and grow the wider team, setting technical standards, code review practices, and a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.

Requirements

• 9 Years in Software Development, with a demonstrable progression into technical leadership.
• Proven, hands-on track record of building SDLC processes from an immature baseline into a mature, repeatable practice.
• Deep, current expertise in the .NET / C# ecosystem, across both legacy and modern codebases.
• Strong DevOps background: CI/CD pipeline design, release automation, and configuration management.
• Demonstrated experience defining and implementing test strategy, including unit testing and test automation.
• Experience owning production application support, incident management, and reliability practices.

Qualifications

• Relevant Certifications (for example Azure, Azure DevOps, or Kubernetes), valued but not required.