Head of Engineering

About 247Bet

247Bet is a sports betting and gaming platform built for Africa’s dynamic and connected audience. Beyond traditional betting, 247Bet combines sports, entertainment, social interaction and responsible gaming to create a modern and engaging experience for its users.

247Bet is a licensed operator preparing for commercial launch, with a managed trading partnership in place and an engineering leadership team with experience in large-scale reliability engineering.

We are building a modern technology platform designed to handle real-time, high-volume transactions and the demands of a regulated gaming environment.

About the Role

We are looking for a Head of Engineering to lead and own the entire engineering organisation through commercial launch and subsequent growth.

Reporting directly to the CEO, you will oversee Backend, Frontend, Mobile, QA and DevOps, with the existing Head of Development & Operations reporting into you.

This is both a technical leadership and organisational leadership role. You will be responsible for engineering strategy, delivery, team structure, technical standards, production reliability, hiring, performance and engineering operations.

The platform processes real-money transactions in real time and will operate under regulatory scrutiny, with significant traffic expected around major sporting events. The ideal candidate must therefore be capable of balancing engineering velocity with reliability, security and correctness.

We are looking for an experienced engineering leader who can build strong teams, establish high standards, deliver against ambitious timelines and engage credibly in technical discussions with senior engineers.

Key Responsibilities

Engineering Leadership & Strategy

• Own the engineering organisation across Backend, Frontend, Mobile, QA and DevOps.
• Develop and execute the engineering strategy in alignment with company and product objectives.
• Translate business goals and product priorities into clear engineering plans and delivery timelines.
• Own engineering roadmap execution, release quality and commercial launch readiness.
• Establish clear engineering priorities, processes and standards across teams.

Team Leadership & Development

• Lead, grow and retain a high-performing engineering organisation.
• Build and structure engineering teams based on business and technical requirements.
• Lead engineering recruitment and hiring decisions.
• Establish performance expectations and support career development across the engineering organisation.
• Mentor engineering managers and senior engineers.
• Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, technical excellence and continuous improvement.

Technical Leadership

• Set and maintain technical standards across architecture, code quality, testing, security and observability.
• Review and challenge architectural decisions where necessary.
• Provide technical direction while allowing senior engineers appropriate ownership.
• Ensure systems are designed for scalability, reliability and maintainability.
• Make informed decisions around technical debt, refactoring and engineering priorities.

Production & Reliability

• Own production engineering performance and reliability.
• Establish and monitor appropriate SLOs and reliability targets.
• Oversee incident management and escalation processes.
• Establish effective on-call structures and operational ownership.
• Ensure post-mortems are conducted and lessons are translated into meaningful improvements.
• Ensure the platform can reliably handle high-volume traffic and real-time transactions.

Integrations & Technology Partners

• Oversee critical third-party integrations, including:
  • Trading and odds providers
  • Payment providers
  • KYC providers
  • Fraud-prevention tools
  • Other critical technology vendors
• Evaluate vendor performance and technical reliability.
• Work with Product, Compliance and other stakeholders to ensure integrations meet business and regulatory requirements.

Engineering Operations & Budget

• Own the engineering budget, including:
  • Headcount
  • Cloud infrastructure
  • Engineering tools
  • Technology vendors
  • Contractors
• Make commercially sound build-vs-buy decisions.
• Monitor engineering spend and ensure resources are allocated effectively.
• Establish appropriate processes for engineering planning and delivery.

Security, Compliance & Regulatory Readiness

• Ensure engineering practices support the requirements of a licensed Nigerian gaming operator.
• Work closely with Compliance and other stakeholders to ensure regulatory and audit requirements are reflected in engineering systems and processes.
• Ensure appropriate security, access controls, monitoring and operational practices are in place.

Commercial Launch & Scaling

• Lead engineering readiness for commercial launch.
• Identify technical and operational risks that could affect launch.
• Establish the systems, processes and team structure required to scale after launch.
• Prepare the engineering organisation for rapid growth in users, transactions and system complexity.

Requirements

• 10+ years of software engineering experience.
• 4+ years of experience leading engineering teams or organisations.
• Demonstrated experience shipping and operating high-transaction-volume, real-time production systems.
• Strong technical depth and ability to review architecture, challenge technical decisions and engage credibly with senior engineers.
• Experience with or strong understanding of technologies such as .NET, PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka and AWS/EKS.
• Proven experience hiring, structuring and developing engineering teams.
• Experience owning production operations, including SLOs, incident management, reliability and on-call practices.
• Strong commercial judgement around build-vs-buy decisions, vendors and engineering expenditure.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with both executives and technical teams.
• Strong understanding of software development, engineering processes and modern technical practices.
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.

Nice to Have

• Experience in sports betting, gaming, fintech, payments or another regulated/high-stakes industry.
• Experience taking a technology product from pre-launch through commercial launch.
• Previous experience building and scaling engineering teams in a startup environment.
• Experience working within African markets, particularly Nigeria.
• SRE, infrastructure or reliability engineering background.
• Experience working with managed sportsbook or trading providers.
• Experience with real-money transaction systems or other systems where correctness and reliability are critical.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role means building an engineering organisation that can reliably launch, operate and scale 247Bet.

You will be expected to establish the right people, processes and technical standards while ensuring the platform remains reliable, secure and scalable.

You will also be responsible for ensuring that Engineering can deliver against business priorities without compromising the technical and operational foundations required for a regulated, real-money platform.