Software Engineering Manager

Job Title: Software Engineering Manager
Department: Digital
Reporting line: Head of software Engineering
Location: Kampala or Berlin or Naiorbi
Job Grade: 17

About ENGIE Energy Access
ENGIE Energy Access is the leading Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGo) and mini-grids solutions provider in Africa. The company develops innovative, off-grid solar solutions for homes, public services and businesses, enabling customers and distribution partners access to clean, affordable energy. The PAYGO solar home systems are financed through affordable instalments from $0.19 per day and the mini-grids foster economic development by enabling electrical productive use and triggering business opportunities for entrepreneurs in rural communities. With over 1,800 employees, operations in nine countries across Africa (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia), over 1.9 million customers and more than 9 million lives impacted so far, ENGIE Energy Access aims to impact 20 million lives across Africa by 2025.

Job Purpose/Mission
EEA is looking for a talented, self-starting tech lead to join the team to help deliver affordable solar power and financial services across Africa. This position offers a great opportunity to work alongside an elite team of engineers and business professionals and directly contribute to the success of a mission driven company with 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
Line management of a sub-set of the software development team (4-6 direct reports).
Contract management with external developers(freelancers) in collaboration with Head of Software Engineering
Work with engineering tech-lead to put in place clear performance management framework and provide actionable feedback and goals for the technical team
Grow and develop software engineers
Establish upskilling and training path, growth path
Structured coaching and mentorship plan
Institute processes to address performance gaps and ensure the team is technically competent
Together with tech-lead, ensure effective onboarding of new engineers
Recruit software team for their pillar and maintain a pipeline of candidates
Together with tech leads, resource Management to align with key delivery milestones
Actively participate and understand the ROI of engineering efforts, understand the value creation and the priorities to the business.
Contributing to team culture (within the product team and broader digital team)
Communication
Technical excellence and knowledge sharing
Team bonding
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 realize our ambitious goals while developing their own 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 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 is in leadership role, with proven track record of leading a high performing engineering team
Experience in resource management and capacity planning
Practical and thorough understanding of the various software development methodologies, their application in different contexts and trade-offs
Experience in hiring, onboarding and maintaining pipeline of engineers. Demonstrated ability to create suitable conditions to retain talent
Knowledge of developer productivity tools and performance frameworks (DORA, SPACE, DevEx..) in the software space
Ability to identify and address process gaps, culture issues and conflicts
Hands-on, senior level competency of full-stack software development using relevant front and backend frameworks
Entrepreneurial and forward thinking with ability to recognize the impact of technology in business
Appreciation for detailed source code documentation and organized code structuring
Software deployment pipelines and best practice (CI/CD)
Excellent knowledge of computer algorithms and solid computer science fundamentals

Qualifications:
Bachelors or Masters 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 5 , 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 selfhosted for git and CI/CD
Deployment: Capistrano, Ansible
Fresh Ideas Always welcome!

We thank all applicants for their interest, however due to the large volume of applications we receive, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

ENGIE is an equal opportunity employer, promoting diversity and committed to creating an inclusive environment for all. All applications are screened based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without any regard to origin, age, name, sexual identity, orientation or preference, religion, marital status, health, disability, political opinions, union involvement or citizenship. Our differences are our strengths!