Senior Engineering Manager

PxD is seeking a technically strong and people-centred Senior Engineering Manager to take ownership of the delivery and evolution of its technology platforms. This is a hands-on leadership role that blends deep technical involvement with strategic people management — ideal for an engineer who is equally comfortable reviewing system architecture as they are coaching a distributed team.

Our flagship platform, Paddy, is a two-way communications system built on Erlang that delivers agricultural advisory to millions of smallholder farmers across Africa via SMS, IVR, and chat. We are also actively building PaddyAI — a generative AI assistant that empowers agronomists to produce hyper-localised, personalised advisory content at scale. The technology function is still maturing, which means the person in this role will have genuine influence over architecture decisions, team structure, and engineering culture. This is a rare opportunity to build something that measurably improves the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

• Define and drive the engineering roadmap, consolidating existing systems and planning for scale across current and new geographies.
• Guide system architecture, key design decisions, and technology choices that keep platforms reliable, scalable, and maintainable.
• Stay hands-on — review designs, guide implementation, and personally resolve critical technical blockers when needed.
• Scope projects, manage technical trade-offs, and ensure consistent, on-time delivery across the team.
• Raise engineering standards for testing, security, deployment, monitoring, and documentation.
• Lead, manage, and develop a distributed team of six engineers across Kenya and India — setting priorities, clarifying expectations, and holding the team accountable.
• Coach team members, deliver structured feedback, and lead performance reviews that support genuine career growth.
• Translate organisational priorities into clear, actionable technical plans and communicate trade-offs in plain language to non-technical stakeholders.
• Partner closely with Program and Research teams to evaluate new ideas and prototypes before committing engineering resources.
• Champion strong DevOps practices and contribute to long-term technology strategy and architecture evolution.
• Continuously improve engineering processes, tooling, and team ways of working — including planning, communication, and documentation practices.

• Demonstrate at least 10 years of progressive software engineering experience, with a minimum of 4 years in an Engineering Manager role overseeing delivery and team development.
• Lead distributed engineering teams effectively — setting direction, resolving conflict, and building a culture of accountability and psychological safety.
• Architect and make sound decisions on backend and/or full-stack systems, ideally with exposure to telecom-adjacent technologies such as SMS gateways, IVR, or USSD.
• Work confidently with incomplete information and shifting priorities without losing team momentum.
• Communicate complex technical risks and architectural decisions clearly to both engineers and non-technical programme staff.
• Apply modern DevOps practices — CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, monitoring and alerting — to improve system reliability.
• Evaluate and adopt generative AI tools and frameworks in a production engineering context.
• Demonstrate experience or strong interest in agricultural technology, development sector platforms, or public-good technology.

PxD offers a competitive compensation package commensurate with experience. While a specific salary figure has not been disclosed, the role is benchmarked at senior NGO/technology leadership level. Estimated monthly gross compensation is in the range of KES 400,000 – 650,000 depending on experience and location. PxD operates as a globally distributed organisation and supports flexible, remote-first working arrangements.

• Remote-first, flexible working environment
• Opportunity to shape technology strategy from the ground up
• Mission-driven work with measurable impact on millions of smallholder farmers
• Collaborative, intellectually rigorous team culture

This role is best suited for a seasoned engineering leader who has grown from a strong individual contributor background and genuinely enjoys the blend of technical depth and people development. You thrive in ambiguous, early-stage environments and are energised by the challenge of building engineering culture alongside functional systems. You care about the social impact of technology and want your work to matter beyond commercial metrics.

You should not apply if you prefer a fully defined role with established processes, are looking for a purely managerial position with no hands-on technical involvement, or if you are not comfortable managing across time zones and cultures in a resource-constrained environment.

• Prepare an updated CV and a brief cover letter (no more than one page) outlining your engineering leadership experience and why PxD's mission resonates with you.
• Submit your application through PxD's official careers page or the job platform where you discovered this listing.
• Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an initial screening call, followed by technical and leadership interview stages.
• Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis — early submission is strongly encouraged.