Principal Engineer

4w1 month ago

takealot.com

ZA · Full-time · ZAR 1,800,000 – ZAR 2,400,000

About this role

Takealot.com, South Africa's leading online retailer, is looking for a highly talented Principal Engineer to join the Engineering team. As a pragmatic visionary and strategic force multiplier, you will act as the bridge between ambitious business goals and robust technology solutions.

In this role, you will drive the design and architecture of highly scalable, available, and secure distributed systems across the Takealot Group. You will lead 0-to-1 engineering initiatives, evaluate emerging technologies, and prove their viability through rapid prototyping to unlock new capabilities.

You will work alongside industry leaders in a young, dynamic, hyper-growth company that operates at an unprecedented scale. Powering e-commerce infrastructure for millions of South Africans requires building hyper-scale systems that process immense throughput with zero downtime.

Expand your career within the fast-growing Takealot Group: takealot.com, Mr D, and TFS. We like to promote from within, and you'll have the chance to up-skill in record time while architecting the future of retail and logistics in Africa.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Mathematics.
Proven experience architecting hyper-scale, highly available distributed systems with zero downtime.
Deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, modern stack technologies, and scalable system design.
Track record of leading 0-to-1 greenfield incubation and integrating emerging technologies into production.
Ability to balance technical purity with strong business pragmatism and influence executive strategy.
Experience mentoring senior engineers and elevating the technical capability of a large engineering organization.

Responsibilities

Drive technical architecture by leading the design of highly scalable, available, and secure distributed systems across the Takealot Group.
Lead innovation and incubation through 0-to-1 engineering initiatives and rapid prototyping of emerging technologies.
Functionally decompose complex business and supply chain constraints into simple, elegant technical solutions.
Establish, champion, and iterate on group-wide technical standards and evangelise technical transformation.
Serve as the technical authority on cross-departmental projects, understanding and mitigating system interdependencies.
Accelerate career development by actively mentoring senior engineers and guiding their technical growth.
Influence strategy by providing objective, data-loaded guidance to executive decision-makers.
Drive operational excellence by identifying systemic risks and championing platform reliability and performance.

Benefits

Work at scale: impact 4 million happy shoppers and build systems for the leading online retailer in South Africa.
Learn alongside the best of the best and up-skill in record time within a hyper-growth environment.
Grow your career within the Takealot Group (takealot.com, Mr D, TFS) with a strong promotion-from-within culture.