Software Engineering Lead

Job Req ID

7692

Closing Date

26 February 2025

OME

CML: Information Management

Location

Sandton

Purpose of Job

• As the Lead Software Engineer, you will be hands-on in the design, development, and deployment of software solutions, actively performing DevOps tasks such as building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines, managing cloud infrastructure with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and ensuring high system reliability and scalability.

• Work closely with key Energy M&S leaders to understand their needs, define architecture and engineering solutions, win buy-in for your recommendations and collaborate with your colleagues in the Digital and IM teams to transform potential into performance.

• Conduct research into emerging technologies, build digital products and solutions as well as build digital apps, APIs and data solutions to drive digital transformation projects.

• Accountable for fully integrating front-end and back-end technologies and understanding how your software fits within the overall Sasol technology environment.

• Accountable for end-to-end responsibility for larger, highly technical and more complex software components within a project and develop specialized industry knowledge to help you solve our most complex technical problems.

• Play a pivotal role in building up Sasol’s own software engineering capability (chapter).

• Work closely with technology vendor teams across multiple squads and take a ‘hands on’ approach in ensuring the development of digital solutions with the necessary speed, quality, and consistency of approach.

• Manage the software development vendors to account ensuring they consistently deliver to the highest possible levels of performance

Key Accountabilities

• Ensure that all developments adhere to architecture, design, implementation, and security standards and best practices in executing data acquisition, data modelling, integration, ETL and data product/view creation requirements within the frame of the Sasol Data Strategy and Architecture.

• Participate in code reviews or use collaborative programming techniques to promote high quality business outcomes.

• Ability to deliver on user stories, fix bugs and reuse code and platforms.

• Maintain consistent record of evaluating and designing scalable improvements to web, API and Mobile Services.

• Design, implement, and manage CI/CD pipelines to automate the software release process, ensuring seamless integration and delivery of both frontend and backend services.

• Actively manage cloud infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools such as Terraform or Ansible to automate the provisioning, scaling, and management of resources across cloud platforms.

• Perform containerization using Docker, and set up and manage Kubernetes clusters for orchestrating microservices in production environments.

• Directly monitor and resolve issues in production environments, ensuring the availability and performance of applications through monitoring, alerting, and logging systems like New Relic, Prometheus and Grafana.

• Solid understanding of how web applications work including security and best practices.

• Good knowledge of database systems, programming patterns and standards - especially related to web development.

• Strong collaboration skills across small and large project teams (QA, outside vendors, project managers, business sponsors, design teams) as well as strong verbal and written communication skills.

• Demonstrated personal ownership of tasks and tenacious approach to finding and fixing the root cause of issues.

• Ability to shape an engineering community focused on sharing and growing knowledge.

• Strategic mindset (hypothesis driven, 80:20 mindset, iterative approach, activist stance).

• Passion and interest in researching new technologies and developing prototypes, POCs, and MVPs.

• Build and maintain positive relationships with internal and external stakeholders including customers, to enhance the customer experience.

• Continuously improve own skills and knowledge to lead the Software Engineering Chapter’s development. Identify and activate learning as required based on individual and collective needs.

• Manage team performance and development formally and informally based on standard practices in use across Sasol Group.

• Nurture a team spirit and openness towards feedback, collaboration, knowledge sharing, and innovation.

Formal Education

A Bachelor or Master’s degree with above average academic performance in computer science, mathematical-scientific field, information technology, or business administration or a related degree.

Min Experience

9+ years relevant experience, with 8+ years’ experience in software development, ideally in digital delivery and/or technology consulting

A combination of consulting experience and/or chapter lead software engineering experience with solutions architecture and core software engineering experience, working closely with DevOps engineers.

Working knowledge of data science and visualisation applications such as Hadoop, Databricks, Spark, d3.js.

Experience with software engineering standards, unit testing, code reviews, design documentation, and continuous integration.

Full-stack proficiency, experience in creating and consuming solutions for mobile and web.

Experience building and managing CI/CD pipelines, automating cloud infrastructure with IaC, and deploying applications using Docker and Kubernetes.

Certification

Software development certification (e.g., Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate, and Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer) are preferred.

Competencies

• Experience with software engineering standards, unit testing, code reviews, design documentation, and continuous integration.

• Full stack proficiency, experience in creating and consuming solutions for mobile and web.

• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions) to automate testing, integration, and deployment workflows.

• Strong practical experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform or Ansible for automating the setup and management of cloud environments.

• Expertise in containerization and orchestration with Docker and Kubernetes for deploying scalable microservices architectures.

• Proficiency in managing cloud infrastructure on platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, with the ability to configure, monitor, and optimize environments.

• Ability to troubleshoot and resolve real-time issues in production environments using monitoring and logging tools like New Relic, Prometheus, Grafana, or the ELK stack.

• Development skills in front-end and back-end programming languages (e.g. Python, Django, FastAPI, JavaScript, React, Vue.js, CSS, HTML).

• Experience working in an Agile development environment and analytical skills and problem-solving ability, including the ability to research and trouble-shoot application issues, including deep practical experience in DevOps.

• Experience working with both technical and non-technical colleagues in a cross-functional, interdisciplinary environment, including strong written and verbal communication skills.

• Demonstrable experience in instrumenting applications & acting on the outputs.

• Strong experience in translating user research and usability test findings into iterative product solutions.

• Experience leading teams of engineers embedded in multidisciplinary teams (Designers, Engineers, Product Owners, Architects as well as 3rd party service providers) within a fast-paced environment.

• Able to drive an engineering team function end-to-end (establish engineering culture, develop talent, provide direction, establish sustainable pace for team’s work, ensure on-time delivery of engineering team’s output and projects).