Engineering Manager (Supply Chain)

takealot.com, a leading South African online retailer, is looking for a highly talented Engineering Manager (Supply Chain) to join our team in South Africa. 

We are a young, dynamic, hyper-growth company looking for smart, creative, hard-working people with integrity to join us! 

Think you’ve been challenged before? Think again!

• Scale: Over 4 million happy shoppers shop online on takealot.com. Show them what you can do.
• Learn: We work with the best of the best, and then some. Code alongside industry leaders and upskill in record time. 
• Grow: Expand your career in the fast-growing Takealot Group: takealot.com and Mr D. We like to promote from within: Here’s your chance. 

Who’s who in the tech space

The position reports to the Engineering Director of Supply Chain.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

• Build and retain a high-caliber engineering team
• Build relationships through regular one on one conversations
• Remove roadblocks and interruptions to help the team perform
• Be involved with architectural and strategic planning with peers and senior developers
• Work with stakeholders to gather requirements, and manage expectations
• Support and develop the careers of members of the team
• Support and give direction to innovation in the team
• Present practical input for strategic technology decisions
• Stay up to date with industry trends, and standards
• Lead the Agile processes within the team
• Manage the roadmap for the team, playing a key role in prioritization
• Successfully see new projects to completion and launch new products while maintaining the existing code base.
• Facilitate discussions in the team and ensure a good design methodology is used on projects.
• Resolve conflict in the team when necessary
• Promote the achievements of the team
• Track and ensure team productivity is healthy using a metrics-based approach
• Track and ensure operational excellence in the team using a metrics-based approach
• Interview candidates for technical and organizational fit
• Drive innovation, vision, and strategy

The skills we need:

• Customer-centric
• Solutions and results-oriented 
• Natural leader
• Innovative problem solver 
• Curious thinker that understands technical topics beyond the average reader 
• Influencer that constantly grows the quality of their engineering team, through technical initiatives 
• Effective time management and organisational skills 
• Proven ability to develop and maintain positive working relationships 
• Must be comfortable with rapidly changing and/or loosely defined requirements that are refined over time 
• Skilled at active listening and capable of facilitating discussions 
• Strong communication skills with both internal team members and external business stakeholders 
• Strong initiative to find ways to improve solutions, systems, and processe

Qualifications & Experience:

• Bachelor's Degree or Advanced Diploma in Computer Science, Mathematics or Engineering and 5 or more years of Software Development experience.
• In the event that a candidate does not have a Bachelor’s Degree or an Advanced Diploma (in Computer Science, Mathematics, or Engineering), an equivalent experience requirement must be met, which equates to a minimum of 8 years of Software Development experience.
• Minimum 2 years of line management experience. 
• Minimum 2 years experience as a technical lead on multiple projects, with a focus on high-quality output.
• Experience working within an agile team that is operationally hands-on, and an advocate of that culture.
• Experience with Open Source Operating Systems and technologies.
• Experience developing software in Python in a test-driven environment 
• A thorough understanding of computer science fundamentals, including object-oriented design and data structures and algorithms.
• SQL, and MySQL or Postgres experience in a high-load environment.
• Experience with vendor integrations.
• Significant technical experience and a proven track record of architectural ownership and understanding.
• Experience in developing distributed, high transactional and available systems.
• Experience working with GCP/AWS and/or other cloud platforms
• Experience with performance management. 
• Experience developing technical teams to improve quality and output. 
• A thorough understanding of software engineering practices and best practices, including agile software development, source code control systems and the use of software IDEs and development and testing tools.
• An understanding of software deployment tools, deployment processes and best practices.
• Experience developing software for a highly-transactional retail online platform beneficial 
• Experience working with Kafka beneficial 
• Experience working with Docker and/or Kubernetes beneficial 
• Experience with building RESTful API web services, Google Protocol Buffers and microservices is beneficial.
• Experience working with Big Data: data volumes, variety and velocity beneficial.

Let’s talk about life @ Takealot Group

• The power is in your hands: We offer a market-related, Total Remuneration Package that allows full flexibility according to your needs. Go on, be the master of your own destiny.
• No doors: We aren’t fans of stuffy offices or siloed work environments. See someone you like? High five, collab and make something great.
• Remote working: Love water cooler chats and working from home? Takealot.com offers a hybrid working model for the best of both worlds.
• Mentorship programme: We aren’t kidding when we say the people with the best people win. Now’s your chance to be one of the best, by learning from the best.
• Naspers Tech Community & Online Learning: Share ideas and grow with global industry leaders who are all just a Slack message away. Love to learn? Up-skill with free access to courses on MyAcademy, Udacity, Coursera, and more.
• Good times: Get to know the other extraordinary minds at takealot.com during regular social events and out-of-office activities (think hikes, think mini golf, think good times).
• Staff discount. Millions of products across 28 departments. What more could you ask for?
• Birthday leave: Cake Day all the way. Enjoy your day off - you deserve it. 
• Right tools, right job: We work on Mac, but whether you prefer two monitors or one. You’ll work on the latest tech, with the latest tech.
• Help when you need it most: Confidential counseling, legal support, and financial guidance, for free, anytime, anywhere. 
• Tech stack (for days): Angular, Scala, Kotlin, Google Cloud, Kafka, Redis, Kubernetes and all things machine learning. If you build it, they will come.
• Free parking: No more 5km fun runs to your desk (unless you want to). 

Like what you see? 

If you meet the above you are an Extraordinary Mind. Apply today!!

Takealot is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Applicants from previously disadvantaged groups and people with disabilities will be given a preference