{"id":1564079,"url":"https://alion.io/job/scrums-com-principal-engineering-lead","title":"Principal Engineering Lead","company":{"id":57427,"name":"Scrums.com","domain":"scrums.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/scrums-com","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"services","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Schema","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":95,"open_postings":36,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":155,"computed_at":"2026-10-06T05:45:30Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"board_field","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["ZA"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":27000,"max_usd":75000,"period":"year","method":"global_role_cell_scaled_by_country","sample_n":1532},"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":".NET","optional":false},{"name":"Angular","optional":false},{"name":"Apache Kafka","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Azure DevOps","optional":false},{"name":"Bicep","optional":false},{"name":"C#","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Gemma","optional":false},{"name":"Keycloak","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"React.js","optional":false},{"name":"Terraform","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-26T04:03:17Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-01","last_verified_at":"2026-10-06T23:32:19Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":10,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":10},"description":"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.\nResponsibilities\nOwn the architecture, technical standards, backlog direction and delivery across the full engineering team.\nLead, mentor and direct the team as it scales toward approximately 18 engineers, including onboarding and team structure.\nProvide hands-on technical leadership across backend (.NET microservices), AI/Python services, data and messaging, frontend, and Azure infrastructure.\nSet and enforce engineering practices covering code quality, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, security and observability.\nGuide the design and operation of LLM serving and GPU-backed inference workloads within the platform.\nAct as the primary technical point of contact for the client, representing Scrums.com's engineering and DevOps capability to senior stakeholders.\nTranslate business and regulatory requirements into sound technical decisions and clear delivery plans.\nExperience and education\n10+ years in software engineering, with a proven track record of leading engineering teams of 10 or more.\nA career built through senior individual contributor roles rather than a pure management track, with the ability to stay close to the code.\nDeep expertise in C#/.NET, RESTful APIs and microservices architecture.\nWorking knowledge of Python and LLM serving concepts (Gemma or equivalent open-weight models), including GPU-backed inference.\nExperience with MongoDB and Kafka in production environments.\nFamiliarity with modern frontend frameworks (React or Angular).\nStrong Azure experience, including Azure DevOps, Key Vault and VNets, with infrastructure as code in Terraform or Bicep.\nDemonstrated CI/CD pipeline design experience.\nComfortable operating in a regulated fintech or financial services environment.\nAdvantageous: Keycloak or enterprise identity federation experience.","description_format":"text","description_chars":2489,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":10,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"South Africa","iso":"ZA","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["IT Outsourcing & Dedicated Teams","Custom Software Development"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-01T05:37:23Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":10,"expected_fill_days":155,"reasons":["conf:5","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-06T05:45:30Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/scrums-com-principal-engineering-lead","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/scrums-com-principal-engineering-lead.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-07T01:33:38Z","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","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":2532,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":2468,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-08T00:00:00Z"}},"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":57427},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=57427"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fscrums-com-principal-engineering-lead"},{"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%2Fscrums-com-principal-engineering-lead"},{"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%2Fscrums-com-principal-engineering-lead"},{"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/scrums-com-principal-engineering-lead\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fscrums-com-principal-engineering-lead"}]}