Director of Engineering

Nairobi, Kenya or Kigali, Rwanda

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.

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 Division leadership forums and in organisation-wide decision-making, and effectively communicate opportunities and risks with senior leadership.
  • Play a key role in cross-functional working groups (Product, Data, InfoSec, IT Operations, Programme) focused on using technology to advance 1AF's mission.
  • Communicate business and technology strategy clearly throughout the engineering organisation, ensuring alignment from leadership through to individual contributors.

Ensure compliance, security, and data sovereignty: You will ensure our engineering practice meets the regulatory and security obligations of the markets in which we operate. Specifically:

    • Partner with the Head of InfoSec to embed security into the SDLC and ensure controls are reflected in design, code, and operations.
    • Ensure platforms are built and operated in line with East African data sovereignty obligations, including Rwanda Law N° 058/2021 and equivalent emerging frameworks across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Malawi.
    • Meet the additional obligations arising from operating credit and payment services at scale across our markets. 

People Management

Approximately 5+ direct reports up to JL13 and a team of around 50 people across the following workstreams:

  • Experience Team Engineering — Including Field Ops, Farmer, HQ Sys Ops, CorpTech.
  • DevOps / Site Reliability Engineering (in close partnership with the DevOps lead)
  • Architecture (in partnership with OCTO)

Career Growth and Development

We have a strong culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people. You’ll have weekly check-ins with your manager, access to mentorship and training programs, and regular feedback on your performance. We hold career reviews every six months, and set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. You’ll have the opportunity to shape a growing organization and build a rewarding long-term career.

Qualifications

Across all roles, these are the general qualifications we look for. For this role specifically, you will have:

  • 10+ years building software solutions, including 5+ years in a senior engineering leadership role with accountability for delivery, hiring and people growth.
  • Cloud: Deep, hands-on AWS experience. Demonstrated experience leading or co-leading a substantial cloud migration is a bonus.
  • Engineering practice: proven application of DORA-led engineering health, continuous delivery, SRE / reliability practice, and platform engineering/developer experience as disciplines.
  • Polyglot stack competence: comfort across modern web (TypeScript / React or equivalent), mobile (Android, offline-first patterns), and backend (Java / Kotlin, Go, Node.js, or Python). We value the ability to evaluate stack choices critically over name-check expertise in any one framework.
  • Data systems: experience designing and operating both transactional and analytical data stores at scale, and integrating these with a unified data/identity layer.
  • AI integration: practical experience integrating ML or AI capability into production systems, and partnering with specialist AI / ML teams to do so responsibly.
  • Delivery model: outcome-led, flow-oriented agile practice; experience scaling delivery across distributed, multi-country teams. Lean/continuous delivery orientation valued over Scrum certifications.
  • Security and compliance: strong information security instincts; demonstrable experience operating within data sovereignty, financial services, or other regulated contexts.

Preferred Start Date

As soon as possible

Job Location

Nairobi, Kenya; or Kigali, Rwanda (these two locations are preferred, but we are open to locations within our program countries)

Benefits

Health insurance, housing, and comprehensive benefits

Eligibility

One Acre Fund can support a work permit for this role. However, nationals of (or those with an extensive professional background and work history in) our countries of operation are preferred.

 

One Acre Fund never asks candidates to pay any money or pay for tests at any stage of the interview process. Official One Acre Fund emails will always arrive from an @oneacrefund.org address. Please report any suspicious communication here (globalhotline@oneacrefund.org), but do not send applications or application materials to this email address.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and anti-racism are deeply connected to our organization’s mission and purpose. One Acre Fund aspires to build a culture where all staff feel consistently valued, represented, and connected – so that our team can thrive as professionals, and achieve exceptional impact for the farmers we serve.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.

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