Senior Engineering Manager

Precision Development (PxD) is a data-driven agricultural organisation that empowers millions of smallholder farmers across the globe through technology-enabled advisory services. We are seeking a technically accomplished and people-centred Senior Engineering Manager to lead the delivery and evolution of our core technology platforms from our Nairobi office.

This is a rare opportunity to shape an engineering function that is still maturing — giving you genuine influence over architecture, team culture, and ways of working. Our flagship platform, Paddy, is a two-way communications system built on Erlang that delivers agricultural advisory via SMS, IVR, and chat to millions of farmers. We are also developing PaddyAI, a generative AI assistant that enables agronomists to create hyper-localised, personalised advisory content at scale. If you want your engineering work to have measurable real-world impact, this role is for you.

• Define and drive the engineering roadmap, consolidating existing systems and planning for scale across current and new geographies.
• Guide system architecture, design decisions, and technology choices across the Paddy and PaddyAI platforms.
• Stay hands-on enough to review technical designs, guide implementation approaches, and resolve critical engineering issues.
• Scope projects, manage technical trade-offs, and actively unblock delivery for your team.
• Raise engineering standards in testing, security, deployment, monitoring, and documentation.
• Manage and develop a distributed team of seven engineers across Kenya and India — setting priorities, clarifying expectations, and holding the team accountable for delivery.
• Coach team members, provide regular feedback, and lead performance reviews that support career growth.
• Improve team planning rituals, communication practices, and technical documentation.
• Partner closely with Program and Research teams to translate organisational priorities into clear, actionable technical plans.
• Communicate technical risks and trade-offs in plain language to non-technical stakeholders and leadership.
• Evaluate new ideas and prototypes before engineering investment is committed, ensuring focus on high-impact, feasible work.
• Contribute to hiring, onboarding, and building a high-performing engineering culture.

• Demonstrate at least 10 years of progressive software engineering experience, including significant time in technical leadership or management roles.
• Proven ability to lead and grow distributed engineering teams, setting direction while fostering psychological safety and accountability.
• Hands-on experience designing and operating large-scale, high-availability distributed systems — ideally serving millions of users.
• Ability to navigate and make sound architectural decisions in complex, evolving codebases; experience with Erlang or similar functional/concurrent languages is a strong advantage.
• Demonstrated experience delivering or overseeing AI/ML integrations or generative AI products in a production environment.
• Ability to translate ambiguous business requirements into structured technical roadmaps and delivery plans.
• Track record of improving engineering practices — including CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, observability, and security posture.
• Skilled at communicating technical concepts clearly to non-engineering audiences including executives, researchers, and programme staff.
• Experience working cross-functionally in mission-driven, resource-conscious organisations is an added advantage.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field; equivalent practical experience will be considered.

PxD offers a competitive compensation package benchmarked to international NGO and technology sector standards. While an exact figure has not been published, the estimated monthly salary range for this role is KES 350,000 – 600,000, commensurate with experience and qualifications. PxD is committed to fair, transparent pay practices and will discuss the full package during the interview process.

Ideal candidates are engineering leaders who have managed distributed teams and built or scaled platforms serving large user bases. You are equally comfortable discussing system architecture with engineers and explaining trade-offs to programme directors. You thrive in organisations where the function is still being built and see ambiguity as an opportunity rather than a blocker. Experience in the agriculture, development, or social impact sector is a plus but not required — what matters is that you care about the mission.

Do not apply if you are looking for a purely managerial role with no technical involvement, if you require a fully established engineering function to step into, or if you are uncomfortable managing teams across multiple time zones and cultural contexts.

• Visit the PxD careers page or the job platform where you discovered this listing.
• Prepare an up-to-date CV highlighting your engineering leadership experience and any large-scale platform work.
• Write a concise cover letter (no more than one page) explaining your motivation for joining PxD and the most relevant engineering challenge you have led.
• Submit your application through the official application link provided in the original posting.
• No fees are required at any stage of this recruitment process. If asked to pay for certificates, assessments, or any other documentation, treat this as a red flag and report it.