Lead Engineer (Customer Facing)

Department: Engineering

Location: Cape Town Office

Employment Type: FullTime

• Who we’re looking for: A customer-facing Lead Engineer who can own complex API integrations end-to-end, translate between technical and non-technical stakeholders, and lead from the front 🌟

• The challenge: Lead the engineering delivery of a board-backed Storefront initiative, building and scaling our API that unblocks customers and accelerate commercial growth 🚀

• Where you’ll work: This role will be based in Cape Town, you'll be part of our global team, collaborating with colleagues and serving customers across the UK, USA, Australia, South Africa, and beyond. Our hybrid approach offers flexibility with regular team connection in our Cape Town office. 🏢

The Tillo Difference

We're in the business of rewards and incentives, so we know a thing or two about the importance of giving back. We can't grow as a business without growing as individuals, so we are committed to providing a workplace where passionate, driven individuals can thrive. We value collaboration, trust, positivity, and a willingness to learn - only by working as a team will we reach our goals.

We’re the market leader in the UK and are active in a number of other markets including USA, Europe, Australia and India. 🌎

Day to day this role will

• Lead technical direction within the Storefront mission team

• Own complex API integrations end-to-end for buyer customers

• Join customer calls as the technical counterpart, guiding integration conversations and troubleshooting live issues

• Translate technical requirements clearly between customer engineering teams and internal stakeholders

• Proactively identify friction in onboarding and convert customer challenges into product improvements

• Design and architect scalable APIs and backend systems in Laravel

• Contribute across the stack where needed, including frontend support

• Drive best practice in code quality, performance and system design

• Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar within the team

• Leverage AI tools responsibly to increase delivery velocity and solve problems faster

This is a highly visible role working on one of the most important initiatives for the division this year.

What we’re looking for

• 5+ years’ experience building with Laravel in production environments

• Strong expertise in PHP and SQL, with experience designing efficient schemas

• Confident working across the stack, including Vue.js or similar frameworks

• Experience designing scalable systems and working with AWS services

• Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines and version control best practice

• Experience integrating with third-party services and APIs

• Demonstrated technical leadership, whether as a Lead or Senior Engineer

• Comfortable mentoring engineers and raising technical standards

• Strong communication skills, able to articulate complex technical concepts clearly

• Experience working directly with customers or external stakeholders

• A proactive, ownership-driven mindset

• Curiosity and willingness to embrace AI tooling responsibly in engineering workflows

Desirable

• Experience with Nuxt

• Experience with event-driven systems

• Familiarity with AWS, Docker, Kubernetes or Terraform

• Experience with observability tooling such as DataDog

• Strong testing practices including TDD

• Experience in fast-moving scale-up or product-led environments

• Background in agency-style environments where time, scope and customer impact are tightly connected

Benefits

We offer all our employees trust and empower our team to work with flexibility and autonomy. We’re a close-knit team and love working collaboratively, with our hybrid model, our team can come together at our fantastic offices, but also focus in their own space. The Tillo team are a motivated bunch and we all work hard to push Tillo forwards, always innovating. We completely understand the importance of work/life balance and offer a supportive and collaborative working environment with the following benefits:

• 21 days holiday per annum (plus an additional day for your birthday 🎂)

• Retirement Fund (5%)

• Health insurance contribution

• Employee Incentive Scheme

• Hybrid Working

• Top spec equipment including laptop, mouse, keyboard, monitor

• Anniversary gifts

• Monthly breakfasts, drinks, snacks and events

• Team Learning & Development budget

About Tillo

Tillo makes gift cards, rewards, and incentives simple, efficient, and profitable. Operating in over 37 markets and 25 currencies, Tillo processes billions in gift card transactions through a single, plug-and-go API, powering rewards and incentives for the world’s leading businesses.

Backed by Tenzing, Tillo is setting the global standard for digital gift card infrastructure.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement
We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and respected.  We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds, regardless of age, disability, gender identity, marital status, race, ethnicity, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation. 

If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know, and we will be happy to accommodate your needs.