Role Overview
Valor PayTech is seeking a hands-on Engineering Manager to lead the execution and delivery of high-quality software across core engineering teams. Reporting to the Director of Engineering and Product, this role translates the technology and engineering strategy into predictable, high-quality, and scalable delivery. It is not limited to people management—it requires genuine technical depth, end-to-end ownership of the software development lifecycle, operational rigor, and the ability to drive engineering outcomes in a fast-paced, product-driven environment.
What We’re Looking For
This is a hands-on execution leadership role. We are looking for a leader who is, above all:
- Super Technical — maintains genuine technical depth; can go deep into design, code, and debugging, make and defend sound technical trade-offs within the architecture, and lead from the front during critical production incidents.
- Operationally Solid — owns the full software development lifecycle end-to-end with operational rigor—sprint execution, release governance, quality gates, and metrics-driven accountability.
- Strong People Manager — builds, mentors, and grows a high-performing engineering team, instilling a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement.
- Strategic Partner — translates the Director’s technology strategy into execution, connects day-to-day engineering decisions to roadmap and business outcomes, and surfaces risks and opportunities early.
Key Responsibilities
Hands-On Technical Leadership
- Operate as the most senior technical authority within the team; enforce the engineering standards, governance frameworks, and architecture guidelines set by the Director of Engineering and Product.
- Actively participate in system design, technical design reviews, and architecture decisions for new and existing services.
- Perform regular code reviews, guide implementation approaches, and personally contribute to critical, complex, or high-risk components when required.
- Lead troubleshooting of complex production issues and own Root Cause Analysis (RCA) through to permanent resolution.
- Ensure systems are secure, scalable, reliable, and aligned with coding standards and platform conventions; drive systematic reduction of technical debt.
- Provide technical mentoring and guidance to engineers across the team.
FinTech Payments Delivery
- Deliver engineering initiatives across payments, merchant services, transaction processing, reconciliation, and related financial platforms.
- Translate payment and product requirements into robust, well-tested, production-ready implementations.
- Ensure applicable regulatory, security, and compliance requirements (e.g., PCI DSS) are met within design, implementation, and release.
- Contribute to innovation in payment technologies, customer experience, and operational efficiency at the execution level.
Delivery Operations SDLC Ownership
- Own the end-to-end software development lifecycle for assigned squads or modules—requirements refinement, design, development, testing, release, and post-production support.
- Run sprint planning and execution; break down complex requirements into executable tasks with clear ownership and estimates, and ensure predictable, consistent delivery.
- Establish and enforce disciplined engineering practices across version control, code review, CI/CD, environment management, and release governance.
- Participate in change, release, and governance processes (e.g., Change Advisory Board) to ensure controlled, auditable releases with rollback readiness.
- Manage team capacity and trade-offs across scope, quality, timeline, and risk, and communicate them clearly.
- Instrument delivery with metrics—velocity, cycle time, defect leakage, deployment frequency, change failure rate, and MTTR—and drive accountability through data.
- Ensure production stability through proactive monitoring, observability, and timely incident resolution with preventive follow-through.
Team Leadership Stakeholder Collaboration
- Build, mentor, and retain a high-performing engineering team; foster a culture of ownership, urgency, and continuous improvement.
- Conduct performance management, structured feedback cycles, and career development; identify skill gaps and drive targeted upskilling, including building senior bench strength within a junior-heavy team.
- Partner with the Director of Engineering and Product to align team execution with the broader technology roadmap, and provide ground-level feasibility input and risk visibility to inform planning.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, QA, DevOps/TechOps, and Security to ensure feasibility, test coverage, deployment stability, and compliance.
- Support hiring and onboarding of engineers.
Key Competencies
- Hands-On Technical Leadership
- Full SDLC Delivery Discipline
- Operational Rigor and Delivery Management
- Strategic Execution and Roadmap Partnership
- Team Building and Mentorship
- Decision-Making and Problem Solving Under Pressure
- Change Release Management
Technical Environment
Cloud: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
Architecture: Microservices, APIs, Distributed Systems
Development: Agile, DevOps, CI/CD
FinTech: Payments, Merchant Services, Transaction Processing, Compliance
Data Analytics: Business Intelligence, Reporting, Customer Analytics
Programming: Java / .NET / PHP / Python / Node.js (as applicable)
Databases: SQL NoSQL systems
Tools: Git, Jira, Jenkins, Monitoring Logging tools
Required Qualifications
- 10–15 years of experience in Software Engineering and Technical Leadership roles, depending on technical proficiency and other factors.
- Minimum 3–5 years of experience in Engineering Management or Tech Lead roles.
- Hands-on technical depth—able to review design and code, make and defend sound technical trade-offs, and lead from the front during critical incidents.
- Strong command of the full SDLC, Agile delivery, and sprint-based execution cycles.
- Strong understanding of microservices, APIs, and distributed systems.
- Proven experience in CI/CD-driven environments with direct production ownership.
- Experience in FinTech, Payments, Banking, Financial Services, or related industries.
- Demonstrated ability to build, mentor, and retain strong engineering teams.
- Demonstrated ability to lead delivery and resolve complex technical issues under tight timelines and high pressure.
Preferred Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related discipline.
- Experience in payment gateways, digital payments, merchant services, or SaaS platforms.
- Exposure to cloud platforms (AWS / Azure / Google Cloud).
- Strong understanding of information security, compliance, and risk management frameworks.
- Experience operating high-availability, production-critical systems.
