Location Cape Town, South Africa (fully office-based) Employment Type Permanent, full-time Seniority Senior leadership reporting to CEO Remuneration Market-related, commensurate with experience About the Role Payment24 is hiring a Head of Product Engineering to lead the engineering function that builds and supports our customer‑facing products. This is a senior, hands‑on leadership role: roughly half of your time will be spent in front of customers, fronting technical meetings, leading architecture discussions, and owning the technical relationship, and the other half interacting with the engineering team, driving delivery, quality, and output. You will be the senior technical voice of the business at the customer interface, and the senior point of accountability internally for what our engineering team delivers, when it delivers, and how it performs once it is live. We expect you to be close enough to the technology to make and defend architectural decisions, to challenge technical proposals on their merits, and to roll up your sleeves when situations demand it — without being a hands‑on production developer. You will lead a distributed engineering team made up of both hybrid in‑office and fully remote developers, working in close partnership with technical managers and architects. Key Responsibilities Customer‑Facing Technical Leadership (approximately 50% of the role) Act as the senior technical face of Payments24 to our customers in banking, payments, and financial services. Lead and front technical meetings, architecture reviews, and solution workshops with customer technical and business stakeholders. Own architectural decisions on customer‑impacting work, ensuring solutions are robust, scalable, secure, and fit for purpose in a regulated environment. Translate customer requirements into clear technical direction for the engineering team, and translate technical realities back into language customers can act on. Represent Payments24 credibly in escalations, technical due diligence, and senior‑level customer conversations. Engineering Leadership, Output and Quality Lead the product engineering team, accountable for the throughput, quality, and timeliness of what the team delivers. Define and apply objective measures of engineering output, productivity, and quality, and use them to manage performance, surface risk early, and drive continuous improvement. Drive consistent engineering standards, working practices, and accountability across a distributed team of hybrid in‑office and fully remote developers. Set and uphold the bar for code quality, technical design, testing, and operational readiness. Build, develop, and retain a high‑performing engineering team, including direct management of engineering leads and developers, and structured performance, coaching, and development conversations. Stay sufficiently hands‑on to maintain technical credibility — reviewing designs, contributing to architecture, and stepping in on critical technical problems when needed — without taking on the role of a production developer. Delivery and Cross‑Functional Partnership Own the engineering team's commitments to internal and external stakeholders, ensuring delivery against agreed scope, timelines, and quality. Partner closely with the Head of Delivery on project planning, prioritisation, capacity, and reporting, providing the technical depth that complements their project leadership. Partner with the Principal Solutions Architect on internal technical strategy, standards, and platform direction. Provide clear, accurate, and timely reporting on engineering output, delivery status, risks, and team performance to executive leadership and customers. Support, Operations and SLA Ownership Own engineering's contribution to production support, ensuring that customer‑raised and internally raised issues are resolved within agreed SLAs and to a high standard of quality. Work hand‑in‑hand with the operations and support teams on incident response, root‑cause analysis, and remediation. Drive systemic improvements that reduce recurring issues, lift platform stability, and improve customer experience over time. Balance new development against support and operational obligations, providing clear visibility of trade‑offs to stakeholders. Experience and Qualifications A minimum of 10 years of experience in software engineering, including time as a hands‑on developer earlier in your career. At least the most recent 5 years in a senior engineering leadership role of comparable scope (Head of Engineering, Head of Product Engineering, VP of Engineering, Engineering Director, or equivalent). Demonstrable experience leading customer‑facing technical engagements at a senior level, including fronting technical meetings, owning architecture conversations, and managing technical relationships with enterprise customers. Strong technical foundation, current enough to credibly lead architectural decisions, review designs, and engage substantively in technical discussions. Proven track record of leading distributed engineering teams that include both office‑based and fully remote staff, with a clear approach to maintaining accountability, visibility, and consistent output across locations. Proven experience managing engineering delivery, including detailed task‑level tracking, capacity and time management, and delivering committed work within agreed timelines and quality. Strong track record of objectively measuring and reporting on engineering output, individual performance, and team productivity. Demonstrable success in lifting the productivity, discipline, and quality of an engineering team. Experience operating in SLA‑driven support environments, with clear ownership of incident response and resolution quality. Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to operate confidently across technical, business, customer, and executive audiences. Based in or willing to relocate to Cape Town. This role is fully office‑based. Preferred (Advantageous) Direct experience within a fintech, payments, banking, or broader financial services environment. Familiarity with the regulatory, security, and operational expectations typical of the banking and financial services industry. Experience leading engineering for high‑availability, mission‑critical production systems serving enterprise customers. Experience leading or supporting technical due diligence, vendor assessments, or partner integrations with banks or financial institutions. #J-18808-Ljbffr