Software Engineering Lead - Africa

About Zipline

Do you want to change the world? Zipline is on a mission to transform the way goods move. Our aim is to solve the world’s most urgent and complex access challenges by building, manufacturing and operating the first instant delivery and logistics system that serves all humans equally, wherever they are. From powering Rwanda’s national blood delivery network and Ghana’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution, to providing on-demand home delivery for Walmart, to enabling healthcare providers to bring care directly to U.S. homes, we are transforming the way things move for businesses, governments and consumers. The technology is complex but the idea is simple: a teleportation service that delivers what you need, when you need it. Through our technology that includes robotics and autonomy, we are decarbonizing delivery, decreasing road congestion, and reducing fossil fuel consumption and air pollution, while providing equitable access to billions of people and building a more resilient global supply chain.

Join Zipline and help us to make good on our promise to build an equitable and more resilient global supply chain for billions of people.

About the Role

Zipline builds and operates fleets of delivery drones to get critical and life-saving products fast, to where they’re needed. To power this, our software team is building out long-term, scalable solutions to expand rapidly, while empowering our world-class distribution centers to serve our customers as fast as possible. As a lead, you will be responsible for setting the course for your team, building roadmaps with your customers, and helping grow the impact of the folks you support.

We’re looking for an engineering lead excited to lead a small but mighty team of software engineers responsible for our African Market Customer Platforms. These tools are the core toolkit that our operations team use to manage our customers and internal operations. The tools function as both a CRM and ERP, ensuring that order fulfillment status and customer interactions are well managed as well as internal inventory and supply chain are healthy.  You will work on the applications that let us wrangle an ever-growing suite of customers and locations, with an expanding set of use cases. Our ideal candidate works well in startup environments, is comfortable wearing many hats, and can work with other engineers on the team to produce impressive results.

What you'll do in this roleForward-Looking Technical Leadership

• Develop and communicate a strategic, extensible, and scalable technical roadmap that aligns with business objectives
• Set clear, measurable goals, responsibilities, and performance standards for individuals and the team
• Be accountable for the overall performance and outcomes of your engineering team
• Demonstrate expertise in software engineering best practices and guide the team in implementing them

Inspirational Team Building

• Attract and retain top engineering talent to build a productive, diverse, and highly engaged team
• Foster a collaborative and inclusive team culture, encouraging open communication, teamwork, and mutual respect
• Coach, mentor and professionally develop your team
• Lead the software engineering team in the African countries Zipline operates in

Results-oriented Project Management

• Set clear objectives, milestones, and effectively manage resources to achieve business objectives
• Adapt to changing priorities and effectively handle project challenges, setting and resetting expectations appropriately.
• Successfully deliver projects on time while ensuring quality standards
• Collaborate with the product management team on specific projects

Developer Experience Champion

• Cultivate a culture of continuous improvement and innovation to optimize efficiency and productivity
• Implement software development methodologies and best practices to ensure high-quality deliverables
• Successfully deliver code while ensuring quality, functionality, and timely delivery of software

What you'll bring

• 5+ years experience in software engineering
• 2+ years as an Engineering Manager or similar leadership role directly managing teams of 3+ engineers in a fast-paced environment
• Hands-on technical leadership with a strong software engineering background
• An understanding of backend or full stack development and microservice architecture
• A track record of building and leading software teams focused on cloud applications
• Excellent leadership and people management skills, with the ability to inspire and motivate a diverse team
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, and executive leadership
• Previous experience in ERP or CRM systems is preferred 
• Experience working with International collaborators

What else you need to know

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies.

We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!

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