Takealot.com, South Africa’s largest e-commerce company, is seeking a visionary Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to join our dynamic and rapidly growing Engineering leadership team in Cape Town, South Africa.
We are a forward-thinking organisation dedicated to innovation and excellence, seeking smart, creative, and hard-working individuals with integrity. We offer competitive compensation packages, a vibrant company culture, and the opportunity to make a significant impact.
Think you’ve been challenged before? Think again!
- Scale: 4 million happy shoppers shop online on takealot.com. Show them what you can do.
- Learn: We work with the best of the best, and then some. Code alongside industry leaders and up-skill in record time.
- Grow: Expand your career in the fast-growing Takealot Group: takealot.com, Superbalist.com, and Mr D. We like to promote from within: Here’s your chance.
Position Overview:
As Chief Technology Officer, you will report to the Takealot Group CPTO and oversee the engineering departments responsible for the development and operational support of takealot.com across all platforms. You will be a key member of the Takealot Group Engineering Executive Committee (Exco), working closely with the Heads of IT, Data divisions, and senior engineering leaders to define and deliver a comprehensive technical strategy aligned with Takealot.com’s business goals.
Key Responsibilities:
- Leadership & Strategy: Define and deliver a cohesive engineering-wide technical strategy, focusing on speed, efficiency, stability, and security.
- Innovation: Drive technology adoption and innovation, including AI implementation, to enhance engineering efficiency and business outcomes.
- Risk Management: Identify and manage risks related to cybersecurity and business continuity.
- Talent Development: Maintain and evolve the division's talent and organisational structure, with a focus on excellence, transformation, and business continuity.
- Engineering Excellence: Define and oversee standards and practices to foster a robust engineering culture.
- Budget Management: Ensure accurate forecasting, monitoring, and optimization of the division’s budget.
What We’re Looking For:
- Expertise in Engineering Processes: Strong grasp of change management, incident response, and quality assurance.
- Software Development Lifecycle: In-depth understanding of agile development approaches and modern distributed computing systems.
- DevOps & AI: Strong grasp of DevOps practices, modern data architectures, AI capabilities, and cloud infrastructure.
- Security Frameworks: Familiarity with security frameworks such as NIST and ISO-27001.
- Leadership & Decision-Making: Demonstrated ability to innovate, show technical vision, and effect change through influence.
- Organisational Skills: Self-managing with strong organisational and time management skills, attention to detail, and financial acumen.
Qualifications & Experience:
- Education: Bachelor's Degree or Advanced Diploma in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field. Equivalent experience will be considered.
- Professional Experience: Proven experience in a senior engineering role, with hands-on software engineering in an agile environment.
- Track Record: Demonstrated success in delivering systems and products for web and mobile platforms.
- AI Tools: Experience with GenAI tools such as GitHub Copilot to improve engineering efficiency is preferable.
Let’s talk about life @ Takealot Group
- The power is in your hands: We offer a market-related, Total Remuneration Package that allows full flexibility according to your needs. Go on, be the master of your own destiny.
- No doors: We aren’t fans of stuffy offices or siloed work environments. See someone you like? High five, collab and make something great.
- Mentorship programme: We aren’t kidding when we say the people with the best people win. Now’s your chance to be one of the best, by learning from the best.
- Naspers Tech Community & Online Learning: Share ideas and grow with global industry leaders who are all just a Slack message away. Love to learn? Up-skill with free access to courses on MyAcademy, Udacity, Coursera, and more.
- Good times: Get to know the other extraordinary minds at takealot.com during regular social events and out-of-office activities (think hikes, think mini golf, think good times).
- Staff discount. Millions of products across 28 departments. What more could you ask for?
- Birthday leave: Cake Day all the way. Enjoy your day off - you deserve it.
- Right tools, right job: Mac or Windows, two monitors or one. Whatever your preference, you’ll work on the latest tech, of the latest tech.
- Help when you need it most: Confidential counselling, legal support, and financial guidance, for free, anytime, anywhere.
- Tech stack (for days): ReactJS, Python, Scala, Kotlin, Swift, Google Cloud, Kafka, Redis, Kubernetes and all things machine learning. If you build it, they will come.
- Free parking: No more 5km fun runs to your desk (unless you want to).
Join us at Takealot.com and lead our engineering team to new heights. Show 4 million shoppers what you can do and be a part of a company where your contributions make a substantial impact. Apply now and be challenged like never before!
