Senior Developer

About the job

Elenjical, a capital markets and investment banking technology firm based in Johannesburg with a presence across EMEA, is seeking a Senior Developer to join our team.

Role Summary

We are looking for a hands-on Senior Developer to drive delivery across multiple projects, lead a high-performing engineering team, and partner closely with clients and internal stakeholders. You will own technical direction, execution quality, and delivery outcomes, balancing architecture decisions with pragmatic delivery, coaching engineers, and keeping projects on track.

This role is ideal for someone who can switch context fast, communicate clearly with both developers and business stakeholders, and build scalable solutions without over-engineering.

Key Responsibilities

1) Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Own overall solution design across multiple workstreams and projects

• Define architecture patterns, standards, and best practices

• Ensure system reliability, scalability, security, and maintainability

• Review and approve technical decisions (APIs, DB, cloud infra, integrations)

• Drive engineering quality through code reviews and design reviews

2) Delivery Ownership (Multi-Project Execution)

• Manage delivery across multiple concurrent initiatives

• Break down requirements into deliverable milestones and sprint plans

• Identify delivery risks early and remove blockers proactively

• Ensure accurate estimates and predictable releases

• Maintain alignment between scope, timelines, and technical complexity

3) Team Leadership & Mentorship

• Lead a team of engineers (senior + mid-level)

• Coach engineers in design thinking, implementation, and clean code

• Set performance expectations and encourage an ownership culture

• Contribute to hiring, onboarding, and team capability development

• Run tech ceremonies (standups, sprint planning, retros, demos)

4) Client Engagement & Stakeholder Management

• Engage directly with clients to understand needs and translate them into solutions

• Run technical discussions, workshops, and solution walk-throughs

• Communicate progress, risks, and technical decisions clearly and confidently

• Align expectations with product owners, business analysts, and client sponsors

• Support pre-sales scoping and solution shaping when needed

5) Engineering Governance & Continuous Improvement

• Improve tooling, CI/CD, release processes, and observability

• Maintain high standards for documentation and knowledge sharing

• Introduce reusable components and patterns across projects

• Drive incident response practices and root cause resolution

6) Agentic Workflow Management

• Agentic Coding: Experience building software using autonomous agents (Claude, Gemini etc)

• Context & Token Optimisation: Proven ability to manage team's token budgets and mitigate context degradation during long, multi-turn reasoning cycles.

• Context Engineering: Skill in structuring codebases, modularising components, and drafting precise technical specifications to minimise AI "communication tax."

• Iterative Loop Management: Ability to guide agents through the planning, writing, testing, and debugging lifecycle while establishing strict execution guardrails.

• Cost-Conscious Development: Understanding of the financial and performance trade-offs between different foundational models and agent architectures.

Requirements (Must-Have)

• 6+ years of software engineering experience, with proven delivery ownership

• 2+ years in a Tech Lead / Engineering Lead / Senior Engineer role

• Strong hands-on ability (you can build, review, debug, ship)

• Proven experience working across multiple projects or products at once

• Strong communication skills, able to explain complex topics simply

• Experience with:

• Modern Frontend stacks (Next.js 14, React 18)

• Modern backend development (Node.js / Java / .NET / Python)

• APIs (REST/GraphQL), integration design, and data modelling

• Cloud environments (AWS/Azure/GCP)

• CI/CD, deployment pipelines, version control, code review workflows

Nice-to-Have

• Consulting or client-facing delivery experience

• Experience with microservices, event-driven architecture, and message queues

• Experience leading teams in Agile environments

• Experience with system performance tuning and production support