Deputy Director, Engineering Management (Mobile-first Workplace Platform)

GovTech is the lead agency driving Singapore’s Smart Nation initiatives and public sector digital transformation. As the Centre of Excellence for Infocomm Technology and Smart Systems (ICT & SS), GovTech develops the Singapore Government’s capabilities in Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, Application Development, Smart City Technology, Digital Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity.  

At GovTech, we offer you a purposeful career to make lives better where we empower our people to master their craft through robust learning and development opportunities all year round. 

Play a part in Singapore’s vision to build a Smart Nation and embark on your meaningful journey to build tech for public good. Join us to advance our mission and shape your future with us today!  

Learn more about GovTech at tech.gov.sg. 

About the Role

We are seeking a Deputy Director, Engineering Management to lead product engineering for a mobile-first workplace experience platform that unifies multiple employee journeys into seamless digital and physical experiences.

This role presents a unique engineering leadership opportunity: owning the full vertical stack of a mobile-first workplace platform that serves the entire public service. You will lead engineering across the entire product surface: from the core mobile app that officers use daily, to essential workplace services, down to the platform APIs and SDKs that enable partner teams to publish their own digital capabilities. Rather than building standalone features in isolation, you will drive the end-to-end engineering and integration of workplace journeys that seamlessly connect digital services, shared backend systems, and physical workplace touchpoints at scale.

As a senior engineering leader, you will balance technical depth, people leadership, and strategic orchestration. You will be responsible for shaping durable, reusable platform capabilities, driving engineering excellence, and actively mentoring technical talent across the broader organization.

Key Responsibilities

• Product Engineering & Architectural Leadership: Own the technical vision across the full vertical stack, from the native mobile application and core domain microservices to extensible APIs and SDKs, while setting strict quality and security standards for both human-authored and AI-assisted code.
• Platform Extensibility & Integration: Drive the design of modular, reusable developer frameworks that allow partner teams across agencies to easily plug in their own capabilities, while leading the end-to-end architecture of integration-heavy journeys that bridge digital services and physical touchpoints.
• Cross-Functional Orchestration & Execution: Collaborate closely with Product, UX, and Operations partners to balance user experience with technical feasibility, leading internal and vendor teams to deliver reliably on platform roadmaps while maintaining high availability and low technical debt.
• People Leadership & Organizational Talent Growth: Foster a high-performing squad through continuous coaching, 1:1s, and clear performance standards, while actively mentoring senior engineers and emerging leaders across the wider department.
• Hiring & Practice Standards: Drive organizational excellence by participating actively in standard interview panels across the broader organization and feeding squad-level architectural learnings, incident post-mortems, and delivery patterns back into shared practice guidelines.

What Success Looks Like

• Coherent Mobile Platform Experience: Public officers enjoy a seamless, resilient, mobile-first experience when accessing both core workplace services and plug-and-play partner capabilities.
• Thriving Developer Ecosystem: External agency teams seamlessly adopt and build upon well-architected, stable, and documented platform APIs and SDKs.
• Durable Technical Architecture: The platform demonstrates high availability, low technical debt, robust security, and low operational friction across all layers of the stack.
• Broad Talent & Capability Impact: Direct reports and mentored engineers outside your immediate squad show measurable technical growth, clearer accountability, and expanded leadership capability.
• Cross-Functional & Operational Trust: Product, Design, Platform, and Agency partners rely on your product thinking, technical clarity, early risk identification, and strategic execution.

What You Bring

• Academic Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field (or equivalent practical experience); a Master's degree is a plus.
• Years of Experience: At least 10 years of professional software engineering experience, including 3 to 5 years in formal engineering leadership and direct people management roles.
• Proven Engineering Leadership: Extensive experience as an Engineering Manager directly leading technical delivery, people management, and architectural oversight across mobile-first product surfaces, microservices, or developer platform capabilities.
• Product Engineering Mindset: A track record of building durable platform foundations focused on scalability, reliability, and supportability rather than shipping isolated features in a silo.
• Integration Depth: Strong technical fluency in integration-heavy architecture, seamlessly connecting mobile frontends, API gateways, backend services, third-party systems, and physical workplace/IoT touchpoints.
• Cross-Functional Influence & Orchestration: Demonstrated capability in navigating complex stakeholder environments, aligning Product, Design, Operations, and external agency partners around a shared technical vision.
• Mentorship & Talent Development: A passionate commitment to coaching direct reports and a documented history of mentoring mid-to-senior engineers and emerging leaders across the broader organization.

Preferred Qualifications

• Platform & SDK Scope: Prior experience building or scaling mobile platforms, app-store-style developer ecosystems, SDK frameworks, or shared government platform capabilities.
• Hiring & Practice Governance: Direct experience participating in organization-wide interview panels, hiring rubric design, centralized engineering governance, or post-incident review frameworks.

What we offer you:    

GovTech is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive workplace that values diverse voices and perspectives, as we believe that diversity is the foundation to innovation.  

Our employee benefits are based on a total rewards approach, offering a holistic and market-competitive suite of perks. These include leave benefits to meet your work-life needs and employee wellness programs.  

We champion flexible work arrangements (subject to your job role) and trust that you will manage your own time to deliver your best, wherever you are, and whatever works best for you.   

Learn more about life inside GovTech at go.gov.sg/GovTechCareers. 

Stay connected with us on social media at go.gov.sg/ConnectWithGovTech