Director of Engineering

About the role

We believe that new technology is critical to building the most effective rural distribution network on the African continent. Today, we reach over 5.6 million farmers, and we aspire to serve more than 10 million households in the coming decade. Reporting to the Chief Technology Officer, you will lead the development of our technology, focusing on a mobile tech transformation: providing our field staff with the mobile-based tools to reach more farmers; developing scalable, direct communication channels with farmers to improve customer service; and digitizing and decentralizing data collection tools to speed up data flows and improve efficiency. We are looking for someone with the technical experience to bring this vision to life; the Director of Engineering will transform our technology into a core organizational strength, working through several development teams that cross our tech stack

Responsibilities

• Set and steer engineering strategy & vision: In partnership with the CTO, the Head of Engineering, OCTO, Product, AI Enablement and InfoSec, you will shape and execute our engineering strategy and ensure alignment with the broader Technology Division and 1AF business strategy. Specifically:
• Build a high-performing engineering practice that applies industry best practices for continuous delivery, automated testing, observability, and information security by default.
• Co-own DORA-led engineering health (lead time, deployment frequency, change failure rate, MTTR) and drive measurable, continuous improvement.
• Partner closely with Product to deliver a unified roadmap across the Experience Teams, ensuring engineering capacity is matched to the highest-value outcomes.
• Partner with the AI Enablement Team (AI Architect and Senior AI Engineers) to embed AI capability into core platforms.
• Co-own completion of the Azure → AWS cloud migration alongside the DevOps lead, and steer the engineering organisation into an AWS-native operating model.
• Develop leaders and build the team: You will lead a team of approximately 50 engineers, including direct management of 5+ engineering managers/team leads . You are responsible for professional growth, performance management, and team culture and cohesion. Specifically:
• Grow the careers of engineering leaders through structured weekly check-ins, regular career reviews, and clearly differentiated expectations.
• Provide technical mentorship and partner with our Principal Engineer and Head of Engineering to sustain a strong technical bench.
• Lead recruitment efforts with an explicit preference for East African talent, build a globally distributed team, and support the growth of our Technology brand that reflects the communities we serve.
• Serve as a leader and role model within the Technology Division, embodying One Acre Fund's core values: Humble Service, Hard Work, Continual Growth, Family of Leaders, Dream Big, and Integrity.
• Lead efficient and timely delivery of impactful software products: You will deploy engineering capacity against the most important challenges facing the organisation, with a particular focus on our strategic platforms and the persona-led Experience Teams. Specifically:
• Deliver against the outcomes owned by the Experience Teams for Field Officers, Farmers, and Programme Staff.
• Scale Farmer360 as the central unified farmer identity and CRM data layer underpinning the rest of the platform estate.
• Define and evolve system architecture in partnership with OCTO, participate actively in the CAB and ADR governance forums, and contribute to architectural decision-making at the division level.
• Develop and uphold reliability standards (SLOs/SLIs) for critical systems, with mature incident response, post-mortem, and SRE practices.
• Champion platform engineering and developer experience as first-class disciplines that compound delivery velocity over time.
• Embed flow-based, outcome-led delivery practice across teams; move beyond ceremony-centric Scrum towards continuous delivery and measurable product outcomes.
• Communicate and engage with key stakeholders: You will engage with a broad group of stakeholders across the Technology Division and the wider organisation to align priorities and solve problems. Specifically:
• Represent engineering in Technology Divisio

Benefits

Additional Information

About One Acre Fund Founded in 2006, One Acre Fund equips 5.5 million smallholder farmers to make their farms more productive. Across nine countries that together are home to two-thirds of Africa's farmers, we provide high-quality farm supplies, tree seedlings, accessible credit, modern agronomic training, and a wide range of other agricultural services. On average, this model enables any farmer to increase their income and assets on supported land by more than 35 percent, while permanently improving their resilience. This is all made possible by our team of 9,000+ full-time staff, drawn from diverse backgrounds and professions. To learn more, please see our Why Work Here blog post.

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