About the position
Our client, a fast-growing enterprise technology and AI software company, is currently seeking a highly skilled Head of Delivery to join their team based in Hazelwood, Pretoria.
This role provides strategic direction over three critical pillars: engineering execution, delivery operations, and architectural governance. The successful incumbent will be accountable for the full delivery lifecycle across software engineering, customer implementation, and enterprise architecture.
The Head of Delivery will oversee the Software Development Manager/Engineering Lead and the Delivery Lead/Head of Delivery Operations as direct reports, ensuring alignment between engineering output, customer deployment timelines, and architectural standards. The role retains direct ownership of enterprise architecture leadership, defining the target architecture vision and roadmap, evaluating and prioritising technology initiatives, and translating them into actionable designs and non-functional requirements for the engineering function.
Acting as the key bridge between Product, Engineering, Sales/Pre-sales, and Delivery, ensuring that technical requirements are incorporated into proposals, that solutions are architecturally sound, and that projects are delivered on time, on budget, and to the highest quality standards.
Experience & Capability Requirements:
- Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Systems Analysis, or Engineering (preferred).
- 8+ years in technical delivery, architecture, or engineering leadership roles.
- 5+ years in Technical Architecture, Solution Architecture, Software Development, or Engineering.
- Deep understanding of software architecture, the SDLC, release management, estimation, and engineering trade-offs.
- Proven experience leading and managing the delivery of system/software projects in structured environments.
- Experience in a variety of development approaches and methodologies including Agile and Waterfall.
- Experience in both architecture and implementation-level software design.
- Good knowledge of techniques for planning, monitoring, and controlling projects and programmes.
- Good understanding of procurement processes including negotiation with third parties.
- Experience of people management and the ability to lead and influence others.
- Strong leadership skills to coordinate and motivate cross-functional teams and suppliers.
- Ability to operate credibly across engineering, delivery, and architecture domains.
- Excellent prioritisation and administrative management capability across multiple concurrent projects.
- Comfort engaging directly with customers and representing the company credibly during delivery discussions.
Main duties will include, but are not limited to:
Strategic & Organisational Leadership
- Set the overall delivery strategy, operating model, and standards for the delivery organisation across engineering, implementation, and architecture.
- Lead, coach, and hold accountable the Software Development Manager and Delivery Lead as direct reports.
- Ensure alignment between engineering sprint output, customer delivery roadmaps, and enterprise architecture direction.
- Balance technical quality, delivery timelines, capacity constraints, and business impact across the organisation.
- Continuously improve delivery processes, templates, implementation playbooks, and execution discipline as the business scales.
Enterprise Architecture (Direct Ownership)
- Define and maintain the enterprise architecture vision, roadmap, standards, and methodologies in accordance with industry best practices.
- Serve as the high-level designer of systems to be implemented, establishing the basic structure, core design features, and framework for all that follows.
- Evaluate and prioritise technology roadmap items for platforms and translate them into actionable designs and non-functional requirements.
- Continuously research emerging technologies and propose changes to existing architecture; champion adoption across the business.
- Maintain repository of systems architecture artefacts and monitor high-level system performance.
- Ensure successful technical coherence and data security management practices across the business.
Engineering Oversight
- Provide strategic oversight of engineering execution, sprint health, throughput, and forecast accuracy.
- Ensure roadmap priorities translate into executable workstreams with clear developer alignment.
- Escalate and resolve architectural concerns before they become delivery failures.
- Drive engineering discipline in task definition, acceptance criteria, follow-through, and handovers.
Delivery Operations Oversight
- Maintain strategic visibility overall customer delivery roadmaps, timelines, risks, and actions.
- Ensure delivery decisions reflect both customer requirements and internal capability constraints.
- Engage with customers directly when required to resolve escalations or reinforce delivery confidence.
- Oversee partner ecosystem: identify, onboard, enable, and manage delivery partners.
Pre-Sales & Solution Design
- Perform technical review of all solution proposals to ensure architectural soundness.
- Technically assess deployments; identify delivery and implementation risks for inclusion in proposals.
- Provide inputs during feasibility and business case stages for projects.
- Determine appropriate execution and contract strategies relative to project maturity.
Desired Skills:
- Technical Architecture
- Solution Architecture
- Software Development
- Engineering
- Technical Delivery
- Software Design
- Strategic
- Enterprise Architecture
Desired Work Experience:
