Tech Lead, Software Engineer, DevOps

Who are we? Sanlam was established as a life insurance company in South Africa but has since transformed into a diversified financial services group that operates across the African continent, India, Malaysia and selected developed markets, with listings on the Johannesburg, A2X and Namibian stock exchanges. In 2018 the Group celebrated its centenary as well as 20 years since demutualisation and listing in South Africa and Namibia.

Sanlam is one of the largest internationally active insurance groups in the world with a presence in 31 countries and has the biggest non-banking financial services footprint on the African continent. The Group's five business clusters (Sanlam Fintech, Sanlam Life and Savings, Sanlam Investment Group, Sanlam Allianz and Santam) house the Group's business operations. The Group Office provides strategic direction and support to the five clusters, assisting them in realising their strategies and meeting their business objectives and is responsible for governance and for the Group's centralised functions, which include:
Finance, Actuarial and Risk Management, Strategy, Human Resources, Market Development and Sustainability.

A Tech Lead I is a first-line engineering manager who combines hands‑on technical leadership with people management responsibilities. This role requires balancing direct technical contribution with team development, operational excellence, and delivery management. A TL1 leads a single engineering team of 4-8 engineers through the complete software development lifecycle whilst maintaining technical credibility and developing their leadership capabilities. Reporting to a Tech Lead II or Head of Engineering, this role requires strong technical expertise, emerging people management skills, and the ability to navigate cross‑team dependencies to achieve business objectives.

You will work closely with product managers, designers, and other engineering teams to translate business requirements into technical solutions, ensuring your team delivers value incrementally whilst maintaining high standards for code quality, system reliability, and engineering practices.

• Lead a team of 4-8 engineers, conducting regular one‑on‑one meetings and performance reviews.
• Mentor team members on technical skills, career development, and professional growth.
• Provide regular constructive feedback and coach on both technical and soft skills.
• Build a cohesive, high‑performing team with strong morale and healthy dynamics.
• Contribute to hiring efforts and effectively onboard new team members.
• Address individual concerns promptly and maintain high team engagement.
• Conduct effective performance reviews and address performance issues promptly.
• Create growth opportunities within the team and support career progression.

• Remain hands‑on with code, participating in critical implementations and complex debugging.
• Make sound architectural decisions for team‑owned services and components.
• Review and guide the team's system designs, ensuring alignment with broader architecture.
• Balance technical debt with feature delivery and maintain code quality standards.
• Drive the team's operational excellence including on‑call processes and incident management.
• Lead the team's incident response and conduct thorough postmortems.
• Ensure the team delivers reliably whilst maintaining quality standards.
• Introduce new technologies to the team and encourage experimentation.

• Collaborate with Product Management to define technical approach and delivery timelines.
• Plan team roadmap, balancing technical and product priorities.
• Identify and mitigate team‑level risks, managing dependencies with other teams.
• Remove blockers and shield the team from unnecessary distractions.
• Work effectively with Product Management, Design, and leadership stakeholders.
• Communicate team status, technical decisions, and progress to stakeholders.
• Facilitate agile ceremonies and ensure smooth team processes.

• Implement agile practices and continuously improve team processes.
• Track and improve team…