Head of Software Engineering

Location: Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

At Lapaire, we transform people’s lives. 

Because good eyesight is essential for living well and fulfilling your dreams, we have developed a unique concept: a service where the customer is at the heart of our project and quality, stylish products at fair, transparent prices.

Joining the Lapaire team is first and foremost joining an inspiring pan-African adventure that impacts the health and well-being of the people around us, and therefore their lives.

But it is also and above all : 

• Serving our clients at best to improve their lives.
• Working and acting as an entrepreneur, contributing to the Lapaire project with ideas and initiatives.
• Participating in the expansion of a dynamic company by organizing and anticipating work efficiently.  
• Learning every day to continue to grow and surpass yourself.
• Collaborating with young and multicultural teams while sharing your knowledge.

The Lapaire Group was created in 2018 in Kenya and already has over 100 Optical Shops and over 500 employees in Uganda, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin, Togo, Morocco and Senegal. 

Lapaire, See Beyond.

Head of Software Engineering

Job description 

Location: Remote / Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

Contract type : Permanent contract

Start Date : April 2026

Direct reports : Business Analyst, IT Assistant

Hierarchy : Reports to the CEO

The Mission

We are a fast-growing optical retail scale-up. We don't build customer-facing apps; we build a high-performance engine that runs a business. We are looking for a Head of Software Engineering who is 60% Architect/Coder and 40% Strategic Problem Solver. You will own our entire technical ecosystem, ensuring our data is real-time, our inventory is bulletproof, and our third-party SaaS tools actually work the way they’re supposed to.

Your Daily "Hands-on" Reality

• Data Plumbing: You will write the scripts (Python/Node.js) to bridge APIs between our different SaaS (Zoho Books, Freshworks, Google Cloud, Payspace and others).
• The "One Truth": You’ll optimize our Google Cloud / BigQuery / Looker stack to move from "next-day" reporting to "next-hour" live insights.
• Vendor Aggression: When our SaaS crashes or lags, you will dive into the network logs, identify the bottleneck, and hold the vendor’s developers accountable until it’s fixed.
• Automation: You will identify manual bottlenecks in HR, Finance and SC (eg. bonuses, expenses, tax e-invoicing) and either find the right SaaS tool or build a custom integration to automate it.

The Tech Stack

• CRM/POS: Freshsales, CPOS/MSI (SmartOSC)
• Data/Analytics: Google Cloud Platform (BigQuery/Functions), Looker
• Accounting/Payments: Zoho Books, PawaPay, Julaya
• Communication: WhatsApp/Messenger API integration with LLMs
• Payroll/HR: HRIS, Payspace

Ideal profile to succeed in the role

• You have 12+ years of experience with a previous experience as Senior Dev or Lead Engineer but realized you care more about business outcomes than just "clean code."
• The Investigator: If a sync fails, you don't wait for a ticket; you dig into the API documentation and find the conflict.
• Pragmatic: You prefer a "Zap" or a SaaS tool over building from scratch, but you have the coding chops to write a custom bridge when the business needs it.
• No Ego: You are comfortable managing a junior/mid-level team while being the primary person responsible for the "heavy lifting" code.
• Language: Fully bi-lingual (French and English) 

What Success Looks Like in 6 months

1. Speed: Half CPOS loading time.
2. Visibility: Looker is the only source of truth for the entire company, updated hourly.
3. Accuracy: Real-time inventory is live across all outlets, blocking out-of-stock sales.
4. Automation: Key regional tax APIs and payment gateways are fully synced with Zoho Books.