{"id":2434518,"url":"https://alion.io/job/olarm-head-of-engineering","title":"Head of Engineering","company":{"id":3881263,"name":"Olarm","domain":"olarm.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/olarm","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Zoho Recruit","truth_index":null},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"head","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Cape Town, South Africa"],"countries":["ZA"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":39000,"max_usd":89000,"period":"year","method":"global_role_cell_scaled_by_country","sample_n":3940},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Agile","optional":false},{"name":"GDPR","optional":false},{"name":"Incident Management","optional":false},{"name":"ISO 27001","optional":false},{"name":"MQTT","optional":false},{"name":"VPN","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-13T10:18:25Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-13","last_verified_at":"2026-10-24T14:13:30Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":11,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":11},"description":"The Head of Engineering owns how Olarm's technology is built, operated and delivered, across every engineering discipline and the company's internal IT. The areas include Software, Firmware, Hardware, Industrial Design, Agile Delivery and IT & Network.\nResponsibilities\nEngineering leadership\nLead Olarm's engineering organisation through a team of functional leads, not through direct technical work.\nBuild and maintain the leadership layer: appoint, develop and hold accountable the leads for each function.\nOwn engineering hiring, capability development, career levels and succession.\nSet engineering culture, standards and ways of working across disciplines.\nBuild multi-skilled, multifunctional teams that can work across disciplines and cover for one another.\nManage bus-factor risk: keep a key-person risk register, and remove single points of knowledge through cross-training, pairing, documentation and shared ownership of critical systems.\nArchitecture and technical direction\nOwn technical architecture across devices, firmware, MQTT backbone, cloud, mobile and web.\nMake the final call on technical trade-offs, technical risk and technology choices.\nMaintain a technical roadmap that supports the product strategy.\nInnovation and emerging technology\nLead Olarm's technical advancement into new fields, including AI and robotics, in both products and internal operations.\nBuild the capability, prototypes and partnerships needed to turn new technology into viable products and operational improvements.\nStay abreast of new technology trends in software and electronics, and assess their relevance to Olarm.\nBring emerging-technology opportunities to Justin and Product through the Product and Innovation Forum, where strategic bets are agreed.\nDelivery\nOwn engineering capacity, technical sequencing and delivery planning, partnering with Product to shape feasible priorities and flag trade-offs early.\nSchedule engineering-led work, such as system upgrades, infrastructure changes, security patching and technical debt, with Product on one shared roadmap.\nCommit to delivery dates and report honestly on progress and risk.\nOwn release quality, engineering QA and technical testing across software, firmware and hardware.\nHand products to Manufacturing through design transfer, release management and change control.\nSupport engagement\nMaintain constant engagement between Engineering and the Support team, led by the Support Lead and Operations Manager.\nHold a regular, fixed cadence with Support to review open escalations, recurring faults and customer impact.\nProvide a clear escalation path and agreed response times for technical issues\nSupport cannot resolve.\nFeed field issues and support trends into engineering priorities, and close the loop with Support on fixes and root causes.\nBrief Support ahead of every release on changes, known issues and how to handle them.\nStandards and certification\nEnsure engineering work and products comply with the standards and certifications Olarm holds or targets, including ISO 9001, ISO 27001, EN 50131, EN 50136, ATSP, ICASA and CE.\nPlan certification work into product roadmaps so launches are not delayed.\nSupport internal and external audits, and close non-conformities by agreed dates.\nWork with the Head of Compliance, who sets the requirements and audits Engineering independently.\nPlatform and infrastructure\nEnsure an always-on product experience with 99.99% availability (about 52 minutes of downtime a year) across the platform, devices and apps.\nDesign for resilience: redundancy, failover, disaster recovery and safe, zero-downtime releases.\nOwn monitoring, incident management and post-incident reviews, and report availability against target.\nOwn cloud and platform infrastructure, reliability, security implementation and cost.\nOwn Olarm's networks, including device cellular and IoT connectivity, data networks and internet connectivity.\nOwn the SLAs with network and infrastructure suppliers, such as mobile network operators, IoT SIM providers, ISPs and cloud providers; monitor their performance and manage escalations and renewals.\nManage engineering standby rosters, ensuring after-hours cover for production systems, a fair rotation, a clear escalation path and standby allowances in line with policy.\nCyber security, backups, business continuity and disaster recovery\nOwn cyber security across products, platform and internal IT: secure development, device and firmware security, access control, vulnerability management, patching and regular penetration testing.\nLead the response to security incidents, including containment, investigation, customer and regulator communication with Compliance, and post-incident reviews.\nOwn backups for all critical systems and data: automated, encrypted, stored off-site, with restores tested on a regular schedule.\nOwn the technology business continuity and disaster recovery plans, with agreed recovery time and recovery point objectives (RTO and RPO, TBC) for each critical system.\nTest the DR and continuity plans at least annually and report results and gaps to the leadership team.\nImplement and operate the security controls set by the Head of Compliance under ISO 27001, POPIA and GDPR, and support staff security awareness with People.\nEngineering labs\nOwn the maintenance, quality and tidiness of Olarm's engineering labs and workspaces.\nKeep test and measurement equipment in working order and calibrated where required.\nSet and enforce lab standards for housekeeping, ESD control, storage of components and prototypes, and safe use of equipment.\nCoordinate with the Facility Manager on facility maintenance and health and safety requirements.\nInternal IT and network\nOwn office network, firewalls, VPN, connectivity, endpoint management, device standards and identity and access. Ensure reliable internal IT support for all Olarm staff.\nImplement and operate security controls defined by Compliance, including for ISO\n27001.\nExecutive contribution\nContribute to company strategy as part of the leadership team.\nBring technology opportunities and risks to the business proactively.\nManage the engineering budget.\nAny other reasonable task.\nRequirements\nExperience\nLeadership of multi-disciplinary engineering teams across embedded, cloud and application layers\nArchitecture of connected IoT or similar device-to-cloud systems\nBuilding engineering structure, processes and leadership layers in a growing company\nWorking in regulated or certified product environments\nCompetencies\nLeads through leaders: delegates technical work and holds leads accountable\nTranslates business strategy into technical plans and clear trade-offs\nCommunicates with credibility to the leadership team, partners and investors\nMakes sound decisions under ambiguity and owns the outcome\nBuilds a culture of honest reporting, quality and delivery discipline\nQualifications\nDegree in engineering, computer science or a related field (Dan holds an MSc in Biomedical Engineering, UCT)\nBenefits\nExciting Workspace.\n\nCutting-Edge Technology.\n\nEngaging Projects and Innovations.\n\nHigh-Tech Atmosphere. \n\nVersatile Experience - Get exposure to a wide range of things. \n\nInvolvement in Manufacturing Processes - End-to-End Involvement. \n\nInspiring Work Environment.\n\nOpportunity for Career Growth and Continuous Learning - Cross-Functional Teams. \n\nContributing to a South African Company with a real impact on people's lives. \n\nOlarm Device and Subscription.\n\nAre you ready to embark on a journey that's both professionally fulfilling and personally rewarding? If you're excited about technology, driven by results, and thrive in a collaborative environment, Olarm is the place for you. Join us in shaping the future of smart security solutions!","description_format":"text","description_chars":7744,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"master","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Continuous learning"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Smart Home Devices","IoT Platforms & Solutions","Access Control & Alarm Systems"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-13T10:18:25Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":79,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.882,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":10,"expected_fill_days":30,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-10-24T06:02:35Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/olarm-head-of-engineering","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/olarm-head-of-engineering.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-24T17:34:24Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":25567,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-25T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":3881263},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3881263"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Folarm-head-of-engineering"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Folarm-head-of-engineering"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Folarm-head-of-engineering"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/olarm-head-of-engineering\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Folarm-head-of-engineering"}]}