Tech Lead (Bellville, Western Cape, ZA) @ Sanlam Life Insurance Limited

About Sanlam Life and Savings (SLS) Sanlam Life and Savings (SLS) is one of Sanlam’s core business clusters, bringing together life insurance, retirement, savings and investment capabilities to help clients build and protect their financial futures. SLS Technology is at the heart of this ambition. We are modernising our technology landscape, strengthening our engineering capability and building product-aligned teams that take end-to-end accountability for the technology they create, from design and build through to running, enhancing and continuously improving it.

Job Description

We are looking for an exceptional Tech Lead to lead the engineering of a strategic new Life Annuities technology product . This is a hands-on technical leadership role for someone who wants to build, not simply manage. You will shape the technical direction, make key architecture and engineering decisions, lead and develop a high-performing team of engineers, and work closely with Product, Design, Architecture and business stakeholders to turn complex requirements into secure, scalable and resilient technology.

Our philosophy is simple: Build it. Own it. Your team will own the technology across its full lifecycle, including design, build, test, deploy, run, manage, enhance and fix. We are looking for a leader with deep engineering credibility, strong technical judgement and an ownership mindset who can help us build both an outstanding product and the engineering culture behind it. Build it. Own it. Make it better. Sanlam Life and Savings is building a dedicated, product-aligned technology team to create and operate the next generation of technology supporting our Life Annuities business.

This is not a conventional project team that builds a solution and hands it over. The team will own the product and its technology across the full lifecycle: design, build, test, deploy, run, manage, enhance and fix . We are looking for an accomplished Tech Lead to help mobilise this team and establish the engineering foundations, culture and technical direction required to deliver a secure, scalable and resilient financial services platform. You will combine hands-on software engineering, technical leadership and team enablement . You will work closely with Product Management, Architecture, Design, Business and Operations to translate complex customer and commercial requirements into well-designed technology solutions.

What will you do?

• Lead the technology and engineering direction Define and evolve the technical vision, architecture and engineering roadmap for the product.
• Translate product and business needs into pragmatic, scalable and secure technical solutions.
• Make sound architectural and engineering decisions, balancing immediate delivery with long-term product sustainability.
• Guide system design across applications, services, integrations, data and cloud infrastructure, ensuring alignment with broader SLS Technology architecture, security, data and risk standards.
• Champion modern AI-enabled and agentic software engineering practices, establishing how AI coding agents and automation are used responsibly across design, development, testing, documentation and operations.
• Evaluate opportunities to embed AI and agentic capabilities into the product architecture where they create meaningful customer, operational or engineering value.
• Evaluate other emerging technologies and introduce them where they create measurable customer or engineering value.
• Build and lead a high-performing engineering team Help recruit, onboard and develop a team of strong software engineers.
• Create an engineering culture grounded in ownership, collaboration, learning and technical excellence.
• Provide hands-on coaching, technical direction and constructive feedback.
• Establish clear engineering standards and create the environment for engineers to do their best work.
• Build capability within the team and support the development of future technical leaders.
• Encourage healthy technical debate, experimentation and continuous improvement.
• Remain close to the code Contribute directly to critical implementations, prototypes and complex technical problem-solving.
• Review code and system designs, ensuring that solutions are maintainable, testable and fit for purpose.
• Lead the resolution of complex defects, performance challenges and production incidents.
• Champion automated testing, secure coding, code quality and effective technical documentation.
• Manage technical debt deliberately and transparently.
• Own delivery and operational excellence Lead the team through the full software development and product lifecycle.
• Establish modern engineering practices across CI/CD, infrastructure as code, automated testing, observability and release management.
• Ensure that the team builds for operability, reliability, security and supportability from the outset.
• Define and track appropriate engineering and service-health measures.
• Lead incident response, root-cause analysis and blameless post-incident reviews.
• Use operational insights, customer feedback and engineering data to improve the product continuously.
• Partner across the business Work closely with Product Management to shape priorities, delivery plans and product outcomes.

Collaborate with Architecture, Cybersecurity, Data, Risk, Compliance, Design, Business and Operations. Communicate technical decisions, risks, dependencies and trade-offs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders. Manage cross-team dependencies and remove impediments to delivery. Help create shared accountability for customer outcomes rather than narrow functional hand-offs.

What you will bring

A relevant degree or diploma in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. Typically 8 to 10+ years of software engineering experience , including meaningful experience in a technical leadership, senior engineering or solution architecture role. A strong record of designing, building and operating secure, scalable and highly available software systems. Demonstrated ability to lead engineers while retaining strong hands-on technical credibility.

Strong understanding of system design, software architecture and modern engineering practices. Experience building distributed systems in a cloud environment, preferably AWS, although relevant Azure or Google Cloud experience will also be considered. Experience with modern backend technologies such as Java, Python, Node.js, Go or comparable languages. Experience with modern frontend frameworks such as React, Angular or Vue. Practical experience with APIs, microservices, event-driven architecture and integration patterns.

Experience with relational and non-relational databases, messaging platforms and data-intensive systems. Working knowledge of containers, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, infrastructure as code and observability. Strong problem-solving, communication and stakeholder-management capability. Experience in insurance, fintech, banking, investments, retirement income or another regulated environment will be advantageous. What will make you successful? Ownership You take accountability for the technology and the outcomes it enables.

You do not see production support, defects or operational performance as someone else’s responsibility. Technical judgement You can navigate complexity, identify the decisions that matter and choose solutions that are appropriate for the product, organisation and customer. Engineering leadership You raise the standard of engineering around you. You coach through the work, provide clarity and help capable engineers become even better. Product thinking You understand that technology exists to solve customer and business problems.

You consider value, risk, sustainability and total cost of ownership when making technical decisions. Delivery focus You create momentum without compromising security, resilience or maintainability. You favour incremental delivery, fast feedback and continuous improvement. Communication and influence You can explain complex technical matters in accessible language, facilitate productive technical discussions and influence decisions across organisational boundaries. Learning mindset You remain curious, keep pace with developments in engineering and apply new technologies thoughtfully rather than following trends for their own sake.

These success attributes build on the source advert’s emphasis on ownership, customer centricity, growth, innovation, velocity and inclusion. Why join SLS Technology? This is an opportunity to: Build a strategically important financial services product from the ground up. Shape the technical foundation rather than inherit all the decisions. Help select and develop the engineering team that will build and operate the product. Work with meaningful autonomy and end-to-end accountability. Solve complex technology problems in a large, regulated financial services environment.

Build technology that supports customers at an important stage of their financial lives. Contribute to the evolution of modern product and engineering practices across SLS Technology. Grow your career within one of Africa’s largest diversified financial services groups. The opportunity We are looking for more than someone who can coordinate delivery. We need a technology leader who can design it, build it, lead it and own it . If you are excited by the opportunity to create a strong engineering team, build enduring technology and take responsibility for the product throughout its lifecycle, we would like to hear from you.

Turnaround time The shortlisting process will only start once the application due date has been reached. The time taken tocomplete this process will depend on how far you progress and the availability of managers. Closing date 30 November 2026. The Sanlam Group is committed to achieving transformation and embraces diversity. This commitment is what drives us to achieve a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace as we believe that these are key components to ensuring a thriving and sustainable business in South Africa. The Group's Employment Equity plan and targets will be considered as part of the selection process.