Tech Lead — Engineering Execution & Delivery Ownership

Healthcare SaaS | Regulated Systems

Location: Remote within South Africa

Type: Full-time. US working hours (3pm-11pm/4pm-12am ASAT) with some flexibility

Stack: Python, FastAPI, AWS, React, Terraform, CI/CD, AI-assisted development workflows

Independent Contractor

About the Role

We are looking for a highly execution-oriented Tech Lead who combines strong technical depth with operational ownership and urgency.

This role requires a technical leader who can take ownership of engineering execution end-to-end, driving delivery, maintaining momentum, ensuring accountability, and helping engineers move quickly without sacrificing quality.

You will lead by example, staying close to the code, identifying risks early, pushing projects forward, and ensuring the team delivers reliably in a fast-paced healthcare SaaS environment.

The ideal candidate is highly hands-on, learns complex business logic quickly, operates with urgency, embraces accountability, and uses modern engineering practices - including AI-assisted development workflows where they create real leverage.

What You'll Own

Engineering Execution & Team Accountability

• Own day-to-day engineering execution across projects and teams
• Drive delivery momentum and ensure engineers make consistent forward progress
• Hold a high bar for responsiveness, follow-through, and execution quality
• Proactively identify blockers, staffing gaps, delivery risks, and coordination issues before they impact timelines
• Work closely with leadership to align staffing and technical priorities with business needs
• Ensure work is properly scoped, estimated, delegated, and completed
• Push projects through ambiguity and maintain execution velocity in a fast-moving environment
• Balance speed, pragmatism, scalability, and maintainability

Technical Leadership

• Translate product requirements and architectural direction into practical implementation plans
• Lead technical execution across backend systems, APIs, integrations, infrastructure, and frontend applications
• Write and review production-quality code in Python (FastAPI) and React
• Guide engineers through technical challenges and implementation trade-offs
• Ensure APIs, data models, workflows, and integrations are implemented consistently and clearly
• Partner with architecture leadership to provide implementation feedback grounded in operational reality
• Maintain strong engineering standards while remaining pragmatic and delivery-focused

Business Logic & Product Understanding

• Quickly absorb and understand complex business workflows and operational requirements
• Ensure engineering decisions align with product and operational realities
• Help engineers understand the "why" behind implementation decisions
• Identify areas where technical improvements can simplify operations or reduce support burden

AI & Engineering Effectiveness

• Leverage AI tools and modern development workflows to improve engineering productivity and quality
• Identify opportunities where automation or AI-assisted workflows can accelerate delivery, testing, documentation, debugging, or support operations
• Encourage thoughtful adoption of tools that improve team efficiency without compromising reliability or security
• Continuously improve engineering workflows, developer experience, and operational effectiveness

Infrastructure, Reliability & Delivery

• Collaborate on AWS infrastructure and Infrastructure-as-Code using Terraform
• Maintain secure, reproducible, and production-ready environments
• Support strong CI/CD practices including automated testing and reliable deployments
• Ensure systems meet HIPAA and other regulated-environment requirements
• Drive operational discipline around observability, deployment quality, and production reliability
• Escalate risks early rather than allowing issues to drift

What We're Looking For

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Proven success leading engineering execution in fast-paced environments
• Strong hands-on experience with Python, FastAPI, AWS, and distributed systems
• Solid understanding of React and frontend architecture
• Experience owning delivery across remote engineering teams
• Strong operational mindset with a bias toward action and accountability
• Ability to quickly understand complex business logic and domain workflows
• Strong judgment balancing technical quality with business urgency
• Experience improving engineering productivity, workflows, or developer effectiveness
• Comfortable making decisions and driving execution under ambiguity
• Excellent communication and organizational instincts
• Working knowledge of Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform)Experience operating in security-conscious or regulated environments

Bonus Experience

• Experience in healthcare, fintech, or other regulated SaaS environments
• Familiarity with HIPAA, SOC 2, or similar frameworks
• Experience scaling or managing offshore/distributed engineering teams
• Experience improving engineering processes, SDLC practices, or delivery operations
• Experience using AI-assisted engineering workflows in production environments
• Exposure to event-driven or message-based architectures

What Success Looks Like

• Engineers execute with urgency, clarity, and accountability
• Projects move forward consistently without excessive oversight
• Risks, blockers, and staffing issues are surfaced early and addressed proactively
• Systems remain understandable, scalable, and reliable while delivery velocity stays high
• Complex business workflows are implemented correctly with minimal rework
• Engineering standards remain high without slowing down execution
• AI and automation meaningfully improve engineering efficiency and delivery quality
• Leadership trusts the engineering organization to execute predictably and responsibly
• Teams consistently deliver outcomes, not just completed tickets