Head of Engineering

📋 Description

• • As the Head of Engineering at Bjak Sdn. Bhd., you will be instrumental in shaping the future of our cutting-edge application platforms, driving engineering excellence, and fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration across our global teams. This pivotal role demands a leader with a robust technical foundation, exceptional people management skills, and a strategic mindset to guide our engineering efforts towards achieving ambitious business objectives and societal contributions.
• • Bjak is at the forefront of digitizing the insurance industry in Southeast Asia, having developed the region's first and leading insurance platform that currently serves over 8 million users. Our mission extends beyond this success; we are continuously building new, superior applications, increasingly integrating Artificial Intelligence to address emerging use cases and enhance efficiency. You will play a critical role in this expansion, ensuring our technological infrastructure is robust, scalable, and ready to support future growth and innovation.
• • In this highly collaborative and flat organizational structure, you will be expected to be hands-on, contributing directly to the company’s mission. Your responsibilities will span across ensuring seamless engineering execution, providing critical technical guidance, building and scaling high-performing engineering teams, and fostering effective cross-team coordination.
• • **Engineering Execution:** You will be responsible for structuring engineering workstreams, ensuring that projects are meticulously planned, executed, and delivered efficiently. This involves proactively identifying potential risks, swiftly unblocking engineers to maintain momentum, and upholding rigorous engineering standards while keeping teams laser-focused on shipping high-quality products. A key aspect of this role is translating high-level product direction and overarching technical strategy into actionable, clear engineering plans that drive tangible results.
• • **Technical Guidance:** You will provide essential technical leadership, contributing significantly to key architecture discussions and critical technical decision-making processes. Your expertise will be invaluable in supporting engineers as they evaluate complex system design choices and navigate implementation trade-offs. A core focus will be ensuring that all systems are architected and implemented in a manner that prioritizes scalability, maintainability, and long-term robustness, aligning with our commitment to engineering excellence.
• • **Team Building and Recruiting:** A significant part of your mandate will be to build and scale a world-class engineering team, with a strategic focus on talent acquisition and development across our China, US, and Europe locations. You will be responsible for attracting and recruiting top-tier engineering talent, rigorously maintaining our high hiring bar, and establishing structured, effective hiring processes and interview standards that ensure we bring on the best individuals.
• • **Cross-Team Coordination:** You will act as a crucial bridge, working closely and collaboratively with product management, research, and leadership teams. Your role will involve ensuring seamless alignment across diverse engineering efforts and geographical locations, proactively identifying and resolving technical and organizational bottlenecks to facilitate smooth operations and accelerate progress. This cross-functional collaboration is vital to our agile and integrated approach.
• • Our working philosophy at Bjak emphasizes a flat organization, a small, highly motivated team, and an unwavering focus on engineering and product excellence. Every team member is expected to be hands-on and directly contribute to our overarching mission. We champion open discussions, rapid decision-making, and frequent shipping of high-quality code. Code and design reviews are integral to our process, ensuring quality and knowledge sharing. Product, ML, and engineering teams collaborate directly, fostering an environment free from heavy handoffs. Leadership maintains close proximity to technical work, promoting transparency and agility. We value clear ownership, simple yet effective architecture, and fast iteration cycles, empowering engineers to make decisions and take full responsibility for the systems they build.
• • The interview process is designed for efficiency and transparency. Candidates who demonstrate a strong fit will be invited for a limited number of interviews, typically three to four, evaluated by our technical team members. Interviews may be conducted virtually or onsite. We are committed to providing a prompt decision, and for exceptional candidates, the path to an offer can be accelerated, reflecting our desire to onboard top talent quickly.