Takealot.com, South Africa’s leading online retailer, is looking for a highly talented Engineering Manager (Marketplace) 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: 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

This position reports to the Engineering Director for Merchant, Business Systems, and Machine Learning. 

Our ideal candidate will be from a software development background, have a great understanding of architectural practices, and have managed multiple teams simultaneously. You will be an advocate of agile and iterative engineering practices and you will have prior line management experience with a track record of keeping highly skilled developers motivated. This is an exciting opportunity to lead a growing team of engineers working on Takealot.com's ambitious development roadmap.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

We are looking for an experienced software development team lead to join a versatile and creative IT management team. As a development team manager, you will lead multiple teams of developers and testers constantly striving for quality solutions that are delivered on time, within budget and scope, and drive a culture of quality and personal accountability. You will need a strong understanding of large-scale platform development, experience building backend applications, and an appreciation of the technical challenges developers face. You will be from a development background and have a great understanding of architectural practices. You will be an advocate of agile and iterative engineering practices and you will have prior line management experience, managing multiple teams at once, with a track record of keeping highly skilled developers motivated. Successfully launched new products quickly as well as managed a large existing code base. This is an exciting opportunity to lead a growing team of engineers working on takealot.com's ambitious development roadmap. This is a hands-on role, but you shouldn't expect more than 30% of your time writing code and working with others on your team directly contributing to the production of code. The remainder of your time will be split between architectural and strategic planning with peers and senior developers and the day-to-day people management and development required of high-performing and successful teams.

The skills we need:

Customer-centric Solutions and results-oriented  Natural leader Innovative problem solver  Curious thinker who 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 processes 

Qualifications & Required Experience:

Bachelor's Degree or Advanced Diploma in Computer Science, Mathematics, or Engineering and 5 years of Software Development experience, of which a minimum of 3 years of management experience, with a focus on high-quality output, is required. If you don’t 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, of which a minimum of 3 years management experience, with a focus on high-quality output, is required. Experience mentoring less experienced colleagues or teams. Experience working within an agile team that is operationally hands-on, and an advocate of that culture. Experience and a proven track record of architectural ownership and understanding. Experience in developing distributed, transactional, and highly available systems. Good RDBMS/SQL experience in a high-load environment. A thorough understanding of computer science fundamentals, including object-oriented design, data structures, and algorithms. Experience with building RESTful API web services and microservices.

Additional Preferred Skills and Experience:

Five years or more of line management experience.  Experience managing multiple teams concurrently. Experience with performance management.  Experience developing technical teams to improve quality and output.  A thorough understanding of software engineering practices and best practices, including source code control systems, the use of IDEs, and testing frameworks and paradigms. Experience developing software for a highly transactional retail online platform. An understanding of software deployment tools, deployment processes, and best practices. Experience working with Kafka. Experience with Google Protocol Buffers and microservices. Experience with Python, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, Docker, and Linux is advantageous

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. Do you love to learn? Skill up 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: Mac or Windows, two monitors or one. Whatever your preference, you’ll work on the latest tech, off the latest tech. Help when you need it most: Confidential counselling, legal support, and financial guidance, for free, anytime, anywhere.  Tech stack (for days): ReactJS, Python, Scala, Kotlin, Swift, 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 preference.