Release Engineering Manager (CI/CD) at takealot.com

• The Release Engineering Team (RET) is a division of Takealot’s Engineering team focused on developing tools, solutions and platform which would enable developers to build and deploy software in a safe, secure and continuous manner, whilst maintaining quality. They are a dedicated team of engineers who are responsible for CI/CD solutions, test automation frameworks, cloud & on-prem environments and tools & processes related to build and deployment. This team is also responsible for maintaining some of our core production services, which manage some of our critical functions like monitoring, alerting etc.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

• Build and retain a high caliber engineering team
• Build relationships through regular one on one conversations
• Remove roadblocks and interruptions to help the team perform
• Work with stakeholders to gather requirements, and manage expectations
• Support and develop the careers of members of the team
• Support and give direction to innovation in the team
• Build a robust Build and Deployment across various Tech stack used in Engineering.
• Present practical input for strategic technology decisions
• Stay up to date with industry trends, and standards
• Lead the Agile processes within the team
• Manage the roadmap for the Release Engineering team, playing a key role in prioritization and planning.
• Implement monitoring and observability across build and deployment solutions and production services to provide seamless service to Engineering.
• Facilitate discussions in the team on different requirements and innovative solutions.
• Resolve conflict in the team when necessary
• Promote the achievements of the team
• Track and ensure team productivity is healthy using a metrics based approach.
• Track and ensure operational excellence in the team using a metrics-based approach
• Interview candidates for technical and organizational fit
• Drive innovation, vision and strategy
• Manage budgets, forecasts, and costs

The skills we need:

• Solutions-oriented, can-do attitude and high energy
• Strong analytical and critical thinking, using data to inform decisions
• Good understanding of SOLID principles.
• Proven knowledge and experience of modern CI/CD solutions like Jenkins, Github Actions, Flux CD etc.
• Good planning and team management skills in modern Agile and DevOps methodologies.
• Ability to interview and interact professionally with internal and external people
• Capability to present ideas succinctly, in writing and verbally
• Versatile and with the appetite to learn by doing

Qualifications and Experience:

• Bachelor's Degree/Advanced Diploma in Computer Science or Information Systems with 3 years experience of Software Development experience is required and at least 3 years of experience leading a team of engineers in the capacity of technical lead, project lead or similar.
• In the event that a candidate does not have a Bachelor’s Degree or an Advanced Diploma (in Computer Science, Information Systems), an equivalent experience requirement must be met, which equates to a minimum of 6 years of Software Development experience and at least 3 years of experience leading a team of engineers in the capacity of technical lead, project lead or similar.
• Proven track record of leading and managing teams on complex software projects
• Experience with a broad range of related disciplines such as Development, Cloud Infrastructure, Build Systems, Release Automation, Site Reliability, Provisioning, Configuration Management, and Managed Systems.
• Experience with Open Source Operating Systems and technologies
• Experience with Web Architectures (e.g. SOA, REST)
• Excellent understanding of theoretical Software Engineering fundamentals, including but not limited to distributed systems, highly scalable systems, algorithms, data structures, design patterns, and programming paradigms is advantageous
• Experience with e-commerce-based applications is advantageous
• Experience with Python, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, Docker, and Linux is advantageous