Senior IT Manger

Role Summary

SpacePointe is hiring a Senior IT Manager who is both an architect and an implementer—the person who sets engineering standards and also writes code, reviews PRs, optimizes databases, and leads complex incident/root-cause work. You will own system architecture, performance, and security across multiple stacks (Moqui/Java, Laravel/PHP, Android) and guide team leads to deliver secure, scalable, high-performing systems for payments/POS and commerce platforms operating across multiple countries.

This is not a project/program management role. It is a deeply technical leadership position for a builder who can coach, set technical direction, and personally lift the codebase and databases to a world-class level.What You’ll Do

• Own the Architecture
• Define and evolve service boundaries, data models, and integration patterns across Moqui (Java/Groovy), Laravel (PHP), Android (Kotlin/Java), and supporting services.
• Establish Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), reference implementations, and coding standards; enforce through PR reviews and CI gates.
• Write & Review Production Code (30–50%)
• Contribute features, refactors, and performance fixes in at least two of: Java/Kotlin, PHP (Laravel), SQL, Python/Go (tooling).
• Lead complex PRs, unblock team leads, and land changes that materially improve stability, latency, and security posture.
• Database & Data Engineering Excellence
• Design, model, and optimize OLTP schemas (PostgreSQL/MySQL/MariaDB), including indexing, partitioning, normalization/denormalization strategy.
• Profile and tune slow queries (EXPLAIN/ANALYZE, query plan review), eliminate N+1 patterns, apply caching (Redis) and read replicas where appropriate.
• Define query latency budgets and enforce p50/p95 targets; implement guardrails (e.g., statement timeouts).
• Performance Engineering
• Set API SLOs and capacity plans; drive load/perf testing and regression budgets.
• Optimize JVM/PHP-FPM settings, connection pools, GC tuning, and Android app performance (startup time, memory, cold/warm paths).
• Security & Compliance (PCI DSS)
• Lead secure coding practices (OWASP ASVS/Top 10), dependency governance (SCA), SAST/DAST, secrets management, and encryption in transit/at rest.
• Serve as primary owner with SpacePointe’s data protection partner: schedule/coordinate pen tests, triage findings, drive remediation, and close evidence for audits.
• Maintain PCI DSS controls, policies, and change-management discipline across the SDLC and infrastructure.
• Observability, Reliability & Incident Leadership
• Instrument services with metrics, distributed tracing, and logs; define SLIs/SLOs and error budgets.
• Lead high-severity incidents (security/performance), drive blameless RCAs, and implement permanent corrective actions.
• Delivery & Technical Governance
• Manage engineers via team leads; staff for strengths and enforce high bars on code quality and review hygiene.
• Balance roadmap features, bugfixes, and technical debt with transparent trade-offs and measured outcomes.
• Gate releases via CI/CD quality checks (tests, coverage, linting, SCA/SAST, migration safety), and progressive delivery where applicable.

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years professional software engineering, including 3+ years leading senior engineers or team leads.
• Advanced proficiency in SQL and at least two of: Java/Kotlin, PHP (Laravel), Groovy (Moqui), Python, Go.
• Proven track record designing high-volume transactional systems with strict latency/availability targets.
• Hands-on DB optimization: indexing strategies, query plan analysis, lock contention mitigation, connection pooling, caching layers.
• Demonstrable security leadership: secure coding, secrets/key management, TLS/mutual TLS, tokenization; evidence of PCI DSS (or equivalent) implementation and audit support.
• Strong systems thinking: concurrency, fault isolation, back-pressure, idempotency, retries/circuit breakers, data consistency models.
• Experience setting and enforcing engineering standards (linters, style guides, PR templates) and operating robust CI/CD pipelines.

Nice-to-Have (Big Plus)

• Moqui framework (Java/Groovy) in production.
• Payments/POS domain: ISO 8583, EMV, reconciliation, settlement flows; Android payment terminals (e.g., PAX, WizarPOS).
• Messaging/streaming (Kafka/RabbitMQ), event-driven designs; feature flags and progressive delivery.
• Azure (preferred), Kubernetes, Terraform, GitHub Actions/Jenkins, SonarQube, Trivy/Snyk/Dependabot.
• Mobile architecture (MVVM, offline-first sync, gRPC/REST, background work managers).

Success Metrics (You Own These)

• Performance: API and query p95 latencies, throughput, and error budgets consistently within SLO.
• Security & Compliance: Zero critical/unaddressed vulnerabilities; on-time closure of pen-test findings; clean PCI DSS audits.
• Reliability: Reduced incident frequency/MTTR; documented RCAs with preventive fixes merged.
• Delivery Predictability: On-time feature/bug delivery with maintained quality bars.
• Team Health: Retention, progression, and measurable skill growth of engineers and leads.

How We Work

• Pragmatic, evidence-driven engineering with metrics first.
• “Hands on keys” leadership—demonstrate the standard, don’t just define it.
• Blameless postmortems; automate what hurts; document what matters (ADRs, runbooks, playbooks).

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Pay: E£45,000.00 - E£60,000.00 per month

Application Question(s):

• 1. Database Optimization

“Describe a time when you diagnosed and fixed a performance issue caused by long-running queries in a high-volume transactional system. What tools did you use (e.g., EXPLAIN/ANALYZE, query plan review), and what was the impact on system performance?”

• 2. Secure, High-Volume Systems

“What’s the most complex secure, high-availability system you’ve designed or led (payments/POS experience a plus)? How did you ensure compliance (e.g., PCI DSS or equivalent) while still meeting strict latency and availability targets?”

• 3. Hands-On Leadership

“In your last role, how much of your time was spent writing/reviewing production code versus managing or mentoring engineers? Give an example of a production issue you personally resolved by diving into the codebase.”