Tech Lead I

Position Overview

A Tech Lead I is a first-line engineering manager who combines hands-on technical leadership with people management responsibilities. This role requires balancing direct technical contribution with team development, operational excellence, and delivery management. A TL1 leads a single engineering team of 4-8 engineers through the complete software development lifecycle whilst maintaining technical credibility and developing their leadership capabilities.

Reporting to a Tech Lead II or Head of Engineering, this role requires strong technical expertise, emerging people management skills, and the ability to navigate cross-team dependencies to achieve business objectives. You will work closely with product managers, designers, and other engineering teams to translate business requirements into technical solutions, ensuring your team delivers value incrementally whilst maintaining high standards for code quality, system reliability, and engineering practices.

What will you do?

Team Leadership & People Management

• Lead a team of 4-8 engineers, conducting regular one-on-one meetings and performance reviews.
• Mentor team members on technical skills, career development, and professional growth.
• Provide regular constructive feedback and coach on both technical and soft skills.
• Build a cohesive, high-performing team with strong morale and healthy dynamics. 
• Contribute to hiring efforts and effectively onboard new team members.
• Address individual concerns promptly and maintain high team engagement.
• Conduct effective performance reviews and address performance issues promptly. 
• Create growth opportunities within the team and support career progression 

Technical Leadership & Delivery

• Remain hands-on with code, participating in critical implementations and complex debugging.
• Make sound architectural decisions for team-owned services and components.
• Review and guide the team's system designs, ensuring alignment with broader architecture. 
• Balance technical debt with feature delivery and maintain code quality standards.
• Drive the team's operational excellence including on-call processes and incident management.
• Lead the team's incident response and conduct thorough postmortems. 
• Ensure the team delivers reliably whilst maintaining quality standards.
• Introduce new technologies to the team and encourage experimentation.

Planning & Stakeholder Management

• Collaborate with Product Management to define technical approach and delivery timelines.
• Plan team roadmap, balancing technical and product priorities.
• Identify and mitigate team-level risks, managing dependencies with other teams.
• Remove blockers and shield the team from unnecessary distractions.
• Work effectively with Product Management, Design, and leadership stakeholders.
• Communicate team status, technical decisions, and progress to stakeholders.
• Facilitate agile ceremonies and ensure smooth team processes 

Operational Excellence & Process

• Implement agile practices and continuously improve team processes. 
• Track and improve team metrics including velocity, quality, operational health, and customer experience.
• Ensure the team's service reliability and maintain quality standards.
• Use data to inform decisions and guide improvements.
• Write clear technical documentation and effective status updates.
• Understand product goals and consider ROI in technical decisions 

Qualification and Experience

• Relevant degree or diploma in Computer Science, IT, or related field (or equivalent practical experience).
• Typically 10+ years of software engineering experience with at least 2 years in a management or technical leadership role.
• Deep understanding of system design, software development methodologies, and modern technology stacks.
• Maintains hands-on coding ability alongside management responsibilities. 
• Proven track record of designing, building, and scaling distributed systems in cloud environments.
• Strong expertise in modern backend technologies and frontend frameworks. 
• Experience with microservices, event-driven architectures, and API design.
• Familiarity with DevOps practices (CI/CD, IaC, containers) and observability tools.
• Fintech or banking experience (payments, lending, wealth management) is a plus.

What will make you successful in this role?

• People Leadership: Developing capability in people management, performance reviews, and team development. Ability to guide, inspire, and grow engineering teams. 
• Communication Skills: Excellent communication abilities to facilitate team discussions, present to leadership, and influence team and immediate stakeholders. Capable of writing clear technical documentation. 
• Problem-solving Abilities: Demonstrated ability to analyse complex technical challenges, identify root causes, and devise effective solutions. Can resolve team conflicts and mediate technical disagreements. 
• Delivery Focus: Proven track record of leading teams to deliver reliably whilst balancing quality, velocity, and technical excellence. Experience with project planning and execution.
• Leadership Potential: Shows readiness to expand influence beyond the immediate team, with developing skills in strategic planning, stakeholder management, and handling complex team dynamics.

Knowledge and Skills

Personal Attributes

Build a successful career with us

We’re all about building strong, lasting relationships with our employees. We know that you have hopes for your future – your career, your personal development and of achieving great things. We pride ourselves in helping  our employees to realise their worth. Through its five business clusters – Sanlam Fintech, Sanlam Life and Savings, Sanlam Investment Group, Sanlam Allianz, Santam, as well as MiWay and the Group Office – the group provides many opportunities for growth and development.

Core Competencies

Turnaround time

The shortlisting process will only start once the application due date has been reached. The time taken to complete this process will depend on how far you progress and the availability of managers. 

Our commitment to transformation