Principal Engineering Lead

Step into the most senior technical seat on a high-profile fintech engagement, owning the architecture and engineering direction of a platform being built from the ground up.Lead a team scaling toward roughly 18 engineers across backend, AI, data, frontend and cloud infrastructure, shaping how it grows, builds and ships.Work at the intersection of enterprise .NET engineering and modern AI, including open-weight LLM serving on GPU-backed infrastructure.Operate as the trusted technical voice to client leadership, with real influence over technical decisions from day one.A 12-month contract, hybrid from Johannesburg or Cape Town, in a regulated environment where engineering quality genuinely matters.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture, technical standards, backlog direction and delivery across the full engineering team.
• Lead, mentor and direct the team as it scales toward approximately 18 engineers, including onboarding and team structure.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership across backend (.NET microservices), AI/Python services, data and messaging, frontend, and Azure infrastructure.
• Set and enforce engineering practices covering code quality, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, security and observability.
• Guide the design and operation of LLM serving and GPU-backed inference workloads within the platform.
• Act as the primary technical point of contact for the client, representing Scrums.com's engineering and DevOps capability to senior stakeholders.
• Translate business and regulatory requirements into sound technical decisions and clear delivery plans.

Experience and education

• 10+ years in software engineering, with a proven track record of leading engineering teams of 10 or more.
• A career built through senior individual contributor roles rather than a pure management track, with the ability to stay close to the code.
• Deep expertise in C#/.NET, RESTful APIs and microservices architecture.
• Working knowledge of Python and LLM serving concepts (Gemma or equivalent open-weight models), including GPU-backed inference.
• Experience with MongoDB and Kafka in production environments.
• Familiarity with modern frontend frameworks (React or Angular).
• Strong Azure experience, including Azure DevOps, Key Vault and VNets, with infrastructure as code in Terraform or Bicep.
• Demonstrated CI/CD pipeline design experience.
• Comfortable operating in a regulated fintech or financial services environment.
• Advantageous: Keycloak or enterprise identity federation experience.