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JD — Chapter Lead

Owner Classification Review Date Status
People Operations Internal April 2027 Active

Job Description: Chapter Lead

Department: Technology & Digital
Reports to: Head of Engineering / CDO

Role Overview

Simpaisa uses a squad-based delivery model: squads are cross-functional teams that own products and corridors end-to-end. Squads are effective at shipping. What they are not, on their own, good at is growing engineers, setting technical standards, and ensuring consistent craft across the organisation.

That is what Chapters are for.

A Chapter Lead owns the professional development, technical standards, and community of practice for a group of engineers with shared skills — for example, all backend engineers across multiple squads, or all data engineers. You are not a squad Tech Lead (that person manages day-to-day delivery). You are the person who ensures the engineers in your Chapter are growing, that their skills are calibrated consistently, and that the standards they follow are the same across every squad they work in.

Chapter Leads at Simpaisa currently cover: Backend Engineering, Data Engineering, Security Engineering, and Platform Engineering.

Key Responsibilities

  • Provide coaching, mentoring, and regular performance feedback to Chapter members — goal setting, skill development plans, career pathing within the G1–G8 grade framework.

  • Own technical standards for your Chapter domain — coding standards, testing standards, design patterns, tooling choices. Ensure they are documented in the Architecture space and followed in practice.

  • Organise and facilitate Chapter meetings, workshops, and knowledge-sharing sessions — regularly, not occasionally.

  • Work with Squad Tech Leads to ensure Chapter members are utilised effectively within their squads and contributing to delivery quality.

  • Participate in grade calibration and performance reviews for Chapter members; provide input to hiring decisions for new engineers in your domain.

  • Identify skill gaps in the Chapter; recommend training, conferences, or hiring to address them.

  • Contribute to ARB as a technical standards voice — your Chapter's standards should be reflected in Architecture Review outcomes.

  • Stay current with developments in your technical domain; bring relevant advances to the Chapter and assess their relevance for Simpaisa.

Required Skills and Experience

  • Technical depth: Deep expertise in your Chapter's domain (e.g., backend engineering, data engineering). You must be able to review work, spot problems, and explain better approaches — not just manage.

  • Coaching: Demonstrated ability to develop engineers — setting goals, giving feedback, identifying growth opportunities. Experience with engineers at multiple seniority levels.

  • Standards ownership: Experience writing and enforcing technical standards in an engineering organisation. Not just agreeing that standards are a good idea.

  • Agile: Understanding of how Chapters and squads interact in a squad-based model. Ability to operate across squads without undermining squad autonomy.

  • Communication: Ability to give direct, constructive feedback to engineers and influence technical decisions with other senior engineers and architects.

  • Payments domain (preferred): Understanding of the Simpaisa technology stack and payment processing domain is a strong advantage — though deep Chapter expertise is the priority.

General Requirements

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

  • 8+ years of progressive experience in the relevant technical domain.

  • Demonstrated experience coaching and developing technical professionals.

  • Proven track record of raising technical standards in an engineering team.

What We Offer

  • Competitive salary benchmarked to your local market.

  • A role with genuine influence over technical culture — not just individual delivery.

  • Clear dual-track career path: Chapter Lead is G6/G7; progression to Principal or Head of Engineering.

  • Flexible hybrid working.