Software Engineering Manager

ABOUT THE ROLE

Lean is looking for a hands-on Software Engineering Manager to lead and grow our Client Experience (CX) engineering team. This is a player-coach role: you'll be writing and reviewing production code, setting architectural direction, and leading a team — often in the same week. You'll own the platform components, APIs, and standards that define the quality of every client integration, and partner closely with Product to ship meaningful improvements to client activation and experience. This is a rare opportunity to build a team from the ground up into a genuine pillar of Lean's engineering organisation.

ABOUT LEAN

Lean is the leading financial infrastructure provider in the Middle East. We power some of the region's largest companies with APIs that enable payments, account verification, financial data access, and other critical financial infrastructure.

What started as the region's pioneering Open Banking platform and quickly became the de facto leader in account aggregation and payment initiation in the region is now becoming something bigger: a multi-product infrastructure company powering payments, data, and lending across MENA.

We've processed billions of dollars in transactions. We're trusted by 350+ clients — from Binance and Careem to Etisalat — and backed by General Catalyst, Sequoia, and Shorooq. Our $67.5M Series B was just the beginning. We're expanding into new markets, opening offices, acquiring businesses, and building capabilities that didn't exist here before.

WHAT YOU'LL OWN

- CX delivery — lead project management and technical execution for the CX squad as a true player-coach: writing and reviewing production code, making architectural decisions, and driving technical strategy, all in one role

- Platform ownership — maintain and evolve CX-owned platform components, ensuring reliability, quality, and continuous improvement of the services that underpin the client experience

- API standards — act as the authoritative standards-setter for Lean's APIs across all products; provide tooling and guidance to other engineering teams to drive adoption of consistent, high-quality API design

- People leadership — manage, coach, and develop a team of 2 engineers today, with a clear mandate to grow the team to 5–8 reports through 2027

- Team building — make the case for headcount growth, hire great engineers, and build CX into a standalone pillar with an ambitious mission spanning all client touchpoints

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

Must-have

- 8+ years of engineering experience, with 3+ years in a management or equivalent role demonstrating both technical and people leadership

- Full-stack engineering capability — comfortable writing and reviewing production code across frontend and backend, with AI-assisted development as a standard part of how you work

- Strong proficiency with React, TypeScript, Java, and Spring Boot

- Experience in backend systems design and architecture

- Deep familiarity with API design principles and best practices

- A quality-first mindset — testing frameworks are visible in your work history and you have a clear, practised approach to how quality gets delivered

- Ability to manage observability, monitoring, and incident response for production services

- Track record of building and growing engineering teams through hiring and internal development

- Strong communicator — able to translate technical decisions for non-technical audiences and vice versa

- Comfortable operating in fast-paced, high-ambiguity environments and making good decisions with incomplete information

Nice to have

- Experience in fintech or regulated industries

- Prior experience scaling a team from a small group to 5+ direct reports

NB. While we think the above experience could be important, we’re keen to hear from people that believe they have valuable experience to bring to the role. If you identify with the team and mission, but not all of our requirements, th