Technical Lead - InfraOps at Kyosk Digital Services

Role Profile

Kyosk is looking for a passionate Technical Lead to provide technical leadership to a team of software engineers who are developing solutions on the leading edge of innovation in Africa. The successful candidate will be responsible for solution design and implementation within their groups to create scalable and functional applications...  

As a Technical Lead, you’ll join our growing team of Product and Technology professionals who share a passion for leveraging technology to empower informal retailers across the African continent. You’ll work with teams from multiple countries across the organization to imagine and build innovative solutions for Kyosk’s customers and internal teams.

To be successful in this role you will need to be a great communicator, innovator, influencer, and an analytical problem solver. You will need to think and act fast, deal with ambiguity and constraints, and help to develop ideas into products that work on a global scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic execution: Proactively contribute to the design and implementation of technology strategies, development of the technology roadmap, provide technical guidance and mentoring as well as technical leadership in development practices.
• Technical Leadership: Becoming the go-to expert on tools, frameworks & technologies to which you are assigned. Guide the learning of new products quickly and effectively when given access to user and developer documentation, knowledge base articles, source code, and infrastructure. Champion the resolution of complex technical issues; contribute to continuous improvement and the adoption of best practices, particularly in Agile practices.
• Technical Excellence: Understand and interpret customer requests to suggest the best solution and take responsibility for implementing the solution. Coordinates the identification, reporting and resolution of any bottlenecks or issues related to the projects & members they are managing/working with. Own and shape our best practices & processes and improve/optimize them to ensure they are up to standards.
• Project Management: Lead in designing, documenting, and sharing/discussing the project architecture with the team. Take ownership of the technical implementation of the project they are handling and ensure that projects are on track, deadlines are met, and progress/bottlenecks are communicated to the management. Ensure a strong focus on Code Quality by conducting project code reviews frequently and integrating the needed optimizations and changes.
• People Management & Development: Engage with all team members at every stage in the problem/solution lifecycle to ensure all goals are met. Ensure best development practices are being followed by the dev team and report any findings or red flags. Guide the preparation and review of the technical documentation projects. Mentor & Coach Junior team members and their project colleagues; recruit & interview members for your team. Manage the team’s task queue and deadlines in collaboration with your team’s Product Owner.

Minimum Requirements

• A minimum of 9+ years of demonstrable working experience working with SRE, DevOps; 
• Strong design and architecture skills;
• Strong experience with Kubernetes in cloud environments, preferably GCP
• Strong experience with Infrastructure as Code tools
• Strong experience with shell scripting
• Strong work experience in Relational Databases including PostgreSQL;
• Strong knowledge of CI/CD pipeline orchestration, and Docker containers;
• Strong knowledge of networking
• Experience with Scrum/Agile Development methodologies;
• Experience managing multiple projects at the same time;

Desired Competencies

• Familiarity with nestJs or Spring framework 
• Experience with other scripting languages (python)
• BS degree in Computer Engineering/Computer Science/Electrical Engineering; A Master's degree is a plus
• Certification in GCP cloud technologies
• Stakeholder management;
• Strategic Orientation;
• Strong Problem-Solving Skills;
• Great communication skills;
• Project Management;
• People Management & Development;

Desired Behavioral Competencies

• You have experience in handling the pressure of fast-paced environments typical of a tech startup environment where you wear multiple hats and have access to limited resources 
• You have a strong desire for continuous improvement
• You can work under pressure, with tight timelines and ambitious deadlines
• You have a passion for digital products 
• You can stay motivated through difficult challenges and occasional long hours
• Your passion is contagious, and you use it to inspire the rest of the team
• You have equal empathy for internal users and our target market of informal retailers
• You have a strong work ethic and exhibit genuine care for the team and their products, with a willingness to go to any necessary length to ensure their success
• You have integrity: You do what you say you will do and make no excuses. 
• You develop a deep understanding and respect for what each team member is responsible for and trust them to do their job
• Your confidence and experience make you trust your instinct and communicate persuasively. 
• You are comfortable taking the blame if something goes wrong, and equally quick to give credit to the rest of the team when it goes well
• You are detail-oriented, process-driven, and organized, and you can stay two steps ahead of the work your team is doing
• You understand DevOps as a culture not as a role and seek to automate manual processes where it makes sense.