Product Engineering Lead, Keet

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Product Engineering Lead, Keet based in South Africa. This is a senior engineering leadership role focused on scaling a global peer-to-peer messaging and video-calling product. You will lead API and frontend engineering teams responsible for turning product strategy into reliable, high-quality features. The role combines engineering leadership, product partnership, and hands-on technical decision-making. You will define technical approaches, maintain a high engineering bar, and guide teams through complex product challenges. The environment emphasizes decentralized, local-first technology, privacy, speed, experimentation, and global scale. You will work closely with product leadership and report directly to the CTO, with significant ownership over how solutions are built. This is an opportunity to shape a consumer product designed to compete at massive scale while advancing modern P2P experiences.

Lead the API and frontend engineering teams day to day, removing blockers, reviewing work, and maintaining delivery momentum. Establish and maintain high standards for engineering quality, including performance, reliability, maintainability, and clean API design. Own the technical design of product features and the API boundary between the application's core and frontend experience. Ensure close collaboration between API engineers and specialized engineering teams on code reviews, architecture, design decisions, and changes affecting the underlying engine. Partner with Product Managers to translate product vision and roadmap priorities into clear, technically viable, and appropriately scoped initiatives. Challenge scope and assumptions when necessary, proposing alternative approaches that improve feasibility, quality, or product impact. Bring engineering and distributed-systems perspectives into product decisions, identifying opportunities enabled by peer-to-peer and local-first technology. Encourage rapid experimentation through AI-assisted development, prototypes, and validation before committing significant engineering resources. Create clarity around team objectives, responsibilities, priorities, and measures of success. Mentor engineering leads, helping them strengthen team processes, cross-functional collaboration, and leadership capabilities. Lead by example by contributing technically when needed while empowering teams to take increasing ownership. Requirements Proven experience managing software engineers or engineering leads delivering consumer-facing products, ideally in messaging, calling, social, or other high-scale applications. Strong product sense and the ability to distinguish high-value product opportunities from unnecessary complexity. Deep proficiency in JavaScript and React, with the ability to make informed technical decisions across modern frontend architectures. Strong understanding of distributed and local-first systems, including concepts such as offline-first operation and eventual consistency. Ability to collaborate effectively with product leaders and contribute to product strategy rather than simply executing predefined requirements. Strong technical leadership skills, with experience setting engineering standards, guiding architecture, and improving team execution. Initiative, curiosity, resilience, and comfort working in a fast-moving environment with significant autonomy. Strong communication skills and the ability to give and receive direct, constructive feedback. Ability to balance strategic leadership with hands-on technical involvement when the team or product requires it. Bonus: experience with local-first applications, CRDTs, synchronization engines, offline-capable mobile or desktop applications, or open-source projects. Benefits 100% remote work with a globally distributed environment. Opportunity to lead engineering teams building a privacy-focused peer-to-peer consumer product. Significant ownership over engineering strategy, architecture, technical standards, and execution. Direct partnership with product leadership and reporting line to the CTO. Exposure to distributed systems, local-first architecture, P2P technologies, and large-scale consumer applications. An environment that encourages experimentation, rapid prototyping, AI-assisted development, and technical innovation. Opportunity to mentor engineering leaders and shape team culture and operating practices. International, highly autonomous working environment focused on ambitious product and engineering goals.