Tech Lead

Role Profile: Tech Lead

Level: Senior
Reporting to: Chief of Marketplace
Location: Bryanston (in-office; hybrid after probation)

About

Leadership here means setting the standard. You are expected to stay close to the codebase review pull requests and lead by example.

Role Overview

This is a hands-on technical leadership role within a large-scale marketplace platform. Youll be the most senior technical voice in the roomsetting technical direction reviewing code unblocking engineers and making pragmatic decisions that keep delivery moving.

A central focus of this role is platform modernisation. The core marketplace runs on a production Java monolith with JSP-based frontends. You will own the strategy and execution for migrating to a modern component-driven frontend while ensuring platform stability and continuous delivery. You wont just define the roadmapyoull actively write and ship code alongside the team.

Youll report directly to the Chief of Marketplace and work closely with product design and engineering stakeholders.

Your Day-to-Day

Platform Modernisation & Architecture

• Define and lead the migration from JSP-based frontends to a modern frontend architecture.
• Evaluate frameworks build proof-of-concepts and deliver incremental improvements without disrupting production.
• Assess and drive backend modernisation initiatives (e.g. Java 17/21 upgrades improved API design reduced coupling in the monolith).
• Act as the primary technical architect for the marketplace ecosystem ensuring long-term scalability reliability and maintainability.

Software Development & Quality

• Design develop and maintain high-quality scalable software across the stack.
• Stay close to the codebase contributing regularly and addressing technical debt before it becomes a production risk.
• Set high standards for performance security and reliability.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Lead by example through clean pragmatic production-grade code.
• Review pull requests mentor engineers and raise the overall technical capability of the team through pairing and knowledge sharing.
• Work closely with product managers and designers to translate business needs into robust technical solutions.
• Clearly communicate technical trade-offs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Continuous Improvement

• Stay current with emerging technologies and best practices.
• Be genuinely open to adopting AI tooling where it demonstrably improves team velocity and product qualitybecause it works not because its trendy.

Qualifications

• Bachelors Degree or National Diploma in Computer Science Information Technology or equivalent experience.

Experience & Technical Skills

• 10 years of professional software development experience.
• Experience in ecommerce marketplace platforms or fintech is a strong advantage.
• Strong full-stack capability with deep hands-on experience in production Java systems.
• Proven experience modernising legacy systemsespecially migrating JSP or server-rendered UIs to modern frontend frameworks.
• Practical experience with modern frontend frameworks such as React Vue or similar and a clear opinionated approach to incremental migration.
• Strong backend expertise with modern Java (17/21); experience with Go is a bonus.
• Solid experience working in AWS production environments including EC2 RDS/Aurora Lambda S3 and CloudWatch.
• High-level understanding of React Native Expo is advantageous.
• A strong appreciation for reliability performance and operational excellence.

Leadership & Mindset

• Comfortable working in and improving a mature codebase rather than rewriting for novelty.
• A pragmatic problem-solver who understands trade-offs between big-bang rewrites and incremental deliveryand prioritises shipping value early.
• Proven ability to lead teams through complex technical change building alignment without slowing momentum.
• Clear communicator who can earn trust across engineering product and business teams.