Software Engineering Technical Lead

ENGIE Energy Access (Africa) is hiring a Software Engineering Technical Lead in Nairobi, Kenya. The role requires a seasoned Ruby on Rails engineer to drive the architecture and development of scalable web applications. Responsibilities include defining software strategy, managing the software development lifecycle, ensuring code quality, and leading technical evolution. This position offers the chance to work with a talented team while contributing to impactful solar power and financial services across Africa.
Job Purpose/Mission

EEA is seeking a talented, self-motivated tech lead to join the team and help deliver affordable solar power and financial services across Africa. We are seeking a seasoned Ruby on Rails engineer to step into a technical leadership role, driving the architecture and development of scalable web applications. The ideal candidate will possess a strong foundation in software engineering, a passion for writing clean code, and a proven ability to lead teams and make informed architectural decisions. This position offers a great opportunity to work alongside an elite team of engineers and business professionals, directly contributing to the success of a mission-driven company with a social and environmental impact. Candidates will get the opportunity to work in a diverse technology stack at scale and lead the evolution of at least one of our software products.

Responsibilities
• Define software engineering strategy and architecture with a strong emphasis on Ruby on Rails as a foundational backend framework, with other leaders, fully responsible for the technical evolution of at least one software product, accountable for the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC) from ideation to deployment.
• Stay current with emerging technologies and Rails ecosystem updates to maintain a competitive edge in software capabilities.
• Actively participate and understand the ROI of engineering efforts, understand the value creation and the priorities to the business.
• Develop and own complex software that optimally uses resources to best meet customer needs.
• Establishing clarity on business objectives for proper modelling
• Represent the technical team or assign someone to stakeholder conversations
• Ensure correct implementation and understanding of business logic
• Effective Incident management and resolution SLA
• Technical debt management, especially within Rails codebases
• Put an efficient development process in place with tools and metrics to stay on top of the performance of the team
• Work closely with the Product Manager for resource planning and proper estimation
• Ensure agile processes and other best practices are properly implemented
• Work with the engineering manager to put in place a clear performance management framework
• Architectural evolution and tech debt management of:
• Code quality, compliance, and documentation
• System performance at scale, reliability, observability and high availability
• System security
• Maintain a strong focus on application security, including Rails-specific vulnerabilities and mitigation strategies.
• Contribute to team culture

At EEA, we have high expectations for our managers. Each manager plays a key role in creating an exceptional experience not only for our customers but for every person on our team. Our managers help EEA realise our ambitious goals while developing their leadership skills and facilitating growth for their direct reports.

We believe that great leaders:
• Deliver ambitious results: As a high-performing and accountable leader, you create an environment enabling effective action and bold decisions which contribute to the successful delivery of results.
• Act with integrity: As an ethical leader, you are honest, respectful, objective, and transparent. You create and build upon a foundation of trust and openness.
• Inspire and mentor the team: As an inspirational leader, you walk the talk. You empower and coach your team with trust and humility.
• Are accessible: as an accessible leader, you develop and maintain deep connections with stakeholders through approachability and active listening.
• Ensure diversity and inclusion: as an inclusive leader, you ensure diversity and foster a sense of belonging.

Knowledge and skills

Experience :
• At least 7 years of relevant experience, of which 2 are in a technical leadership role, with a strong emphasis on Ruby on Rails for backend development.
• Practical and thorough understanding of the various software development methodologies, their application in different contexts and trade-offs. Able to identify and quickly address process gaps
• Proven track record in making sound architectural decisions, especially in Rails-based systems, balancing scalability, maintainability, and performance.
• Experience in resource management, capacity planning and risk management
• Deep and pragmatic knowledge of software architecture patterns, their application context and pitfalls/trade-offs
• Hands-on, senior-level competency of full-stack software development using relevant front and backend frameworks
• Entrepreneurial and forward-thinking with the ability to recognise the impact of technology in business.
• Working knowledge of good practices for computer and data security
• Experience creating and maintaining scalable web/mobile applications in a cloud context: distributed task processing, load balancing, containerization, clustering and translating abstract and complex business requirements into software solutions.
• Good experience on high availability, observability and structured logging
• Appreciation for detailed source code documentation and organised code structuring
• Proficiency in CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and deployment best practices in a Rails environment.
• Excellent knowledge of computer algorithms and solid computer science fundamentals

Qualifications :
• Bachelor’s or Master’s in a relevant engineering discipline (Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Computer Science preferred) or comparable

Language(s):
• English
• French is a plus

Our Technology stack :
• Web framework: Rails 7.2, Django, Flask, FastAPI
• Mobile: Android Kotlin/Java
• Background task: Sidekiq, Celery, RabbitMQ
• Front-end: ActiveAdmin, VueJS, Angular
• API: Grape, Devise, DRF, FastAPI
• TDD: RSpec, PyTest
• Search: Thinking Sphinx
• Storage: MySQL, Mongo, Cassandra, Redis
• Source Control: Gitlab self-hosted for git and CI/CD
• Deployment: Capistrano, Ansible
• Fresh Ideas Always welcome!

Are you looking to sharpen your Software Development skills to stay relevant in the market? CLICK HERE to have a look at the top schools.

For all your IT certification needs, please click here for information on how to get started