Head of Engineering

Responsibilities

• Lead Olarm's engineering organisation through a team of functional leads, not through direct technical work.
  
• Build and maintain the leadership layer: appoint, develop and hold accountable the leads for each function.
  
• Own engineering hiring, capability development, career levels and succession.
  
• Set engineering culture, standards and ways of working across disciplines.
  
• Build multi-skilled, multifunctional teams that can work across disciplines and cover for one another.
  
• Manage bus-factor risk: keep a key-person risk register, and remove single points of knowledge through cross-training, pairing, documentation and shared ownership of critical systems.
  

• Own technical architecture across devices, firmware, MQTT backbone, cloud, mobile and web.
  
• Make the final call on technical trade-offs, technical risk and technology choices.
  
• Maintain a technical roadmap that supports the product strategy.
  

• Lead Olarm's technical advancement into new fields, including AI and robotics, in both products and internal operations.
  
• Build the capability, prototypes and partnerships needed to turn new technology into viable products and operational improvements.
  
• Stay abreast of new technology trends in software and electronics, and assess their relevance to Olarm.
  
• Bring emerging-technology opportunities to CTO and Product through the Product and Innovation Forum, where strategic bets are agreed.
  

• Own engineering capacity, technical sequencing and delivery planning, partnering with Product to shape feasible priorities and flag trade-offs early.
  
• Schedule engineering-led work, such as system upgrades, infrastructure changes, security patching and technical debt, with Product on one shared roadmap.
  
• Commit to delivery dates and report honestly on progress and risk.
  
• Own release quality, engineering QA and technical testing across software, firmware and hardware.
  
• Hand products to Manufacturing through design transfer, release management and change control.
  

• Maintain constant engagement between Engineering and the Support team, led by the Support Lead and Operations Manager.
  
• Hold a regular, fixed cadence with Support to review open escalations, recurring faults and customer impact.
  
• Provide a clear escalation path and agreed response times for technical issues Support cannot resolve.
  
• Feed field issues and support trends into engineering priorities, and close the loop with Support on fixes and root causes.
  
• Brief Support ahead of every release on changes, known issues and how to handle them.
  

• Ensure engineering work and products comply with the standards and certifications Olarm holds or targets, including ISO 9001, ISO 27001, EN 50131, EN 50136, ATSP, ICASA and CE.
  
• Plan certification work into product roadmaps so launches are not delayed.
  
• Support internal and external audits, and close non-conformities by agreed dates.
  
• Work with the Head of Compliance, who sets the requirements and audits Engineering independently.
  

• Ensure an always-on product experience with 99.99% availability across the platform, devices and apps.
  
• Design for resilience: redundancy, failover, disaster recovery and safe, zero-downtime releases.
  
• Own monitoring, incident management and post-incident reviews, and report availability against target.
  
• Own cloud and platform infrastructure, reliability, security implementation and cost.
  
• Own Olarm's networks, including device cellular and IoT connectivity, data networks and internet connectivity.
  
• Own the SLAs with network and infrastructure suppliers, such as mobile network operators, IoT SIM providers, ISPs and cloud providers; monitor their performance and manage escalations and renewals.
  
• Manage engineering standby rosters, ensuring after-hours cover for production systems, a fair rotation, a clear escalation path and standby allowances in line with policy.
  

• Own cyber security across products, platform and internal IT: secure development, device and firmware security, access control, vulnerability management, patching and regular penetration testing.
  
• Lead the response to security incidents, including containment, investigation, customer and regulator communication with Compliance, and post-incident reviews.
  
• Own backups for all critical systems and data: automated, encrypted, stored off-site, with restores tested on a regular schedule.
  
• Own the technology business continuity and disaster recovery plans, with agreed recovery time and recovery point objectives (RTO and RPO, TBC) for each critical system.
  
• Test the DR and continuity plans at least annually and report results and gaps to the leadership team.
  
• Implement and operate the security controls set by the Head of Compliance under ISO 27001, POPIA and GDPR, and support staff security awareness with People.
  

• Own the maintenance, quality and tidiness of Olarm's engineering labs and workspaces.
  
• Keep test and measurement equipment in working order and calibrated where required.
  
• Set and enforce lab standards for housekeeping, ESD control, storage of components and prototypes, and safe use of equipment.
  
• Coordinate with the Facility Manager on facility maintenance and health and safety requirements.
  

• Own office network, firewalls, VPN, connectivity, endpoint management, device standards and identity and access. Ensure reliable internal IT support for all Olarm staff.
  
• Implement and operate security controls defined by Compliance, including for ISO 27001.
  

• Contribute to company strategy as part of the leadership team.
  
• Bring technology opportunities and risks to the business proactively.
  
• Manage the engineering budget.
  

Requirements

Experience

• Leadership of multi-disciplinary engineering teams across embedded, cloud and application layers
  
• Architecture of connected IoT or similar device-to-cloud systems
  
• Building engineering structure, processes and leadership layers in a growing company
  
• Working in regulated or certified product environments
  

Competencies

• Leads through leaders: delegates technical work and holds leads accountable
  
• Translates business strategy into technical plans and clear trade-offs
  
• Communicates with credibility to the leadership team, partners and investors
  
• Makes sound decisions under ambiguity and owns the outcome
  
• Builds a culture of honest reporting, quality and delivery discipline
  

Qualifications

• Degree in engineering, computer science or a related field
  

Benefits