Head of Software

Industry: Global Sports Tech and Data

Role: Head of Software

Location: Cape Town (Claremont) - Hybrid 3 days in office per week

Employment Type: Full-time, Permanent

Introduction:

The Head of Software must have a successful track record of managing a team of software engineers (Front End / Back End and Data Scientists) as well as technically strong to provide input on architectural decisions.

This is a senior leadership role. You will:

• Build and lead a high-performing software organisation (backend / API, cloud services, frontend, data science)
• Establish engineering standards, and drive execution against product and commercial commitments.
• You will set the technical direction and operating cadence that keeps our client fast while making reliability feel like a core product feature.
• You will still be technically credible and capable of diving into architecture and incident response, but your primary job is leading people and systems at scale: hiring, coaching, delivery, and operational excellence.

If you thrive in a fast-paced, innovative environment and bring strong IT and people management expertise, we’d love to hear from you.

Required skills / Experience:

• Minimum 3 years managing software engineers or technical leads.
• Education: Engineering degree, Diploma, or equivalent practical experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional software teams.
• Proven track record of shipping production systems at scale.
• Experience owning or significantly influencing architecture decisions.
• Strong exposure to structured software design and release management practices.
• Soft Skills: Exceptional attention to detail and ability to manage multiple requests simultaneously. Good written and verbal communication.
• Able to work independently with a hands-on, sleeves rolled-up approach that thrives in a fast-paced environment.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategy, architecture, and platform ownership

• Own the software strategy and technical roadmap across backend services, edge compute, APIs, and supporting developer platforms.
• Define and evolve system architecture for low-latency real-time tracking workloads (streaming ingestion, processing, synchronisation and delivery).
• Make pragmatic technology decisions that improve reliability, scalability, and speed of delivery.
• Drive strong engineering practices: design reviews, RFCs, coding standards, test strategies, telemetry and release governance.

Leadership & Process

• Operate as both a strategic leader and technical authority.
• Enforces engineering discipline without creating delivery friction.
• Prioritises clarity, predictability, and quality over reactive development.
• Builds scalable team structures rather than hero-driven execution.
• Drive measurable improvements in delivery and reliability metrics.

Nice to Have:

• Experience scaling teams through growth phases
• Exposure to high-availability or low-latency systems
• Experience working closely with hardware / embedded / data systems
• Familiarity with DevOps and infrastructure reliability practices

Reporting Lines:

• Reports to VP of Engineering

Working Closely With:

• All Engineering teams
• VP of Engineering