Head of Engineering – Digital Experience

About the role

We are looking for a founding Head of Engineering for the Digital Experience function at Watu. Reporting to the CTO, you will lead the engineering organisation that owns all customer‑facing products, including payments, the Android app, conversational channels and growth features.

Key responsibilities

• Define technical direction for the customer‑experience layer, including architecture patterns, API design standards and testing strategy.
• Build and manage four engineering squads and a QA chapter, hiring and developing Tech Leads.
• Lead the QA Chapter to ensure consistent testing standards, automation coverage and definition of done across squads.
• Own release management for the Digital Experience, coordinating cross‑squad releases and maintaining the release calendar.
• Drive delivery and quality across squads operating with Scrum or Kanban.
• Oversee payments engineering, messaging experience, Android experience and growth & loyalty engineering squads.

Required profile

• Hands‑on engineering leader comfortable working close to code and architecture.
• Proven experience building and scaling engineering squads in a fast‑moving environment.
• Strong ability to set technical standards and drive high‑quality delivery.
• Collaborative mindset to work with product heads, platform engineering and other senior leaders.

Required skills

• Android development
• API design and implementation
• Payment integrations (e.g., MPESA, Airtel)
• SMS, WhatsApp and Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) messaging
• Scrum and Kanban delivery frameworks
• QA automation and testing standards