Background information about the job or company (e.g., role context, company overview)

Jubilee Insurance was established in August 1937, as the first locally incorporated Insurance Company based in Mombasa in 1937. Jubilee Insurance has spread its sphere of influence throughout the region to become the largest Composite insurer in East Africa, handling Life, Pensions, general and Medical insurance.

The Head – Digital Engineering & Innovation is responsible for driving the Company’s digital transformation agenda through world‑class engineering leadership, architectural governance, product excellence, and strategic innovation. This role provides enterprise‑level oversight of all digital platforms, ensures technical delivery quality across squads, manages key technology partners, and leads the Engineering Chapter to build a high‑performing and scalable digital Company. The role holder will be responsible for setting up the department’s technical direction and governing architecture, ensuring engineering excellence, and enabling the squads to deliver secure, resilient, scalable, and future‑ready digital solutions.

Responsibilities or duties

Strategic Leadership & Alignment

• Partner with the PMO, Business Leads, Group Business Technology Teams and CEO to define, align, and continuously update the Digital Engineering roadmap.
• Translate organisational strategy into engineering execution plans, ensuring timelines, dependencies, and risks are well-managed.
• Provide thought leadership on emerging technologies and market shifts across digital financial services, platform engineering, and customer journeys.
• Lead quarterly strategic planning and prioritization sessions with PMO and Business Owners.

Strategic Innovation & Partnerships

• Lead discovery and negotiation of innovative partnerships targeting:
  • Retail Mass Affluent
  • Base-of-the-Pyramid (BOP) segments.
  • Fintechs, mobile money ecosystems, USSD aggregators, and API-driven platforms
• Drive experimentation with new technologies (AI/ML, digital onboarding, RPA, microservices, cloud-native systems, API integrations).
• Develop proof-of-concepts (PoCs) to test emerging capabilities and scale those with proven impact.
• Foster a culture of innovation within engineering squads.

Architecture Oversight, Assurance & Governance

• Serve as the final architectural authority for all technical designs, ensuring adherence to enterprise standards.
• Review and approve architectural blueprints, solution designs, and integration patterns from Squad Leads.
• Drive adoption of scalable, secure, cloud-ready and API-first architectures.
• Establish and maintain up-to-date architecture patterns, guardrails, reference implementations, and decision logs.
• Ensure alignment with regulatory and compliance frameworks including cybersecurity, data privacy, and business continuity.

Project Triage & Resource Allocation

• Act as the gatekeeper between PMO and engineering squads.
• Conduct impact assessment and prioritization of all incoming requests.
• Determine “best-fit” squad allocation (Efficiency vs Growth squads) based on complexity, urgency, business value, and technical dependencies.
• Ensure effective resource utilisation and balance between Business as Usual (BAU), enhancements, and innovation initiatives.

Vendor & Ecosystem Governance

• Own high-level relationships, commercial negotiations, and contract management for core digital vendors.
• Monitor performance against contractual SLAs, financial commitments, and technical obligations.
• Evaluate vendor performance, technology roadmaps, and upgrade cycles to ensure continuous improvement.
• Enforce engineering, security, and integration standards across vendor-delivered solutions.

Engineering Excellence, DevSecOps & Standards Enforcement

• Establish and enforce cross-squad engineering standards covering:
  • Code quality & secure coding.
  • Automated testing frameworks
  • CI/CD pipelines
  • Observability (logging, monitoring, tracing)
  • Vulnerability scanning & DevSecOps practices.
• Drive continuous improvement - velocity, reliability, and performance.
• Ensure production systems meet enterprise-grade SLAs around uptime, scalability, and resilience.

Budgeting

• Develop and manage the department’s annual budget including:
  • Headcount plans
  • Licensing and subscription fees
  • Vendor contracts
  • Cloud/hosting and integration costs
  • Training and tool procurement
• Optimize cost-to-serve across digital channels, integrations, and engineering operations.

Corporate Governance

• Compliance: Stay updated with insurance regulations and best practices to ensure compliance with industry standards
• Adherence to the laws and regulations of Kenya, the policies and regulations within the insurance industry and all internal company policies and procedures.
• Ensuring compliance with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements and establishing mitigation measures against emerging business risks.

Leadership & Culture

• Fostering a corporate culture that promotes ethical practices and good corporate citizenship while maintaining a conducive work environment.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop initiatives that promote a positive and inclusive company culture.
• Build a strong engineering culture rooted in craftsmanship, continuous learning, ownership, and collaboration.
• Introduce mentorship programs, guilds/communities of practice, internal tech talks, and certifications.
• To provide the much-needed transformational leadership to meet and surpass the expectations of stakeholders and juniors.

Qualifications or requirements (e.g., education, skills)

Key Competencies

• Strategic & Systems Thinking
• Technical Depth & Architectural Leadership
• Vendor & Contract Governance
• People Leadership & Capability Development
• Agile Delivery & DevSecOps Expertise
• Innovation & Commercial Awareness
• Decision-Making Under Ambiguity
• Strong Communication & Stakeholder Influence

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, IT, or related field.
• Master’s degree will be an added advantage.
• Certifications in cloud architecture (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• DevOps/DevSecOps certifications
• TOGAF or similar architecture certification.

Experience needed

Relevant Experience

• 10+ years’ experience in software engineering, solution architecture, or digital platform management.
• 5+ years in senior engineering leadership or head-of-department roles.
• Strong experience in vendor management, contract negotiation, and ecosystem partnerships.
• Demonstrated experience building scalable, secure digital systems in financial services or telco industries.

• Partner with the PMO, Business Leads, Group Business Technology Teams and CEO to define, align, and continuously update the Digital Engineering roadmap.
• Translate organisational strategy into engineering execution plans, ensuring timelines, dependencies, and risks are well-managed.
• Provide thought leadership on emerging technologies and market shifts across digital financial services, platform engineering, and customer journeys.
• Lead quarterly strategic planning and prioritization sessions with PMO and Business Owners.
• Lead discovery and negotiation of innovative partnerships targeting: Retail Mass Affluent, Base-of-the-Pyramid (BOP) segments, Fintechs, mobile money ecosystems, USSD aggregators, and API-driven platforms
• Drive experimentation with new technologies (AI/ML, digital onboarding, RPA, microservices, cloud-native systems, API integrations).
• Develop proof-of-concepts (PoCs) to test emerging capabilities and scale those with proven impact.
• Foster a culture of innovation within engineering squads.
• Serve as the final architectural authority for all technical designs, ensuring adherence to enterprise standards.
• Review and approve architectural blueprints, solution designs, and integration patterns from Squad Leads.
• Drive adoption of scalable, secure, cloud-ready and API-first architectures.
• Establish and maintain up-to-date architecture patterns, guardrails, reference implementations, and decision logs.
• Ensure alignment with regulatory and compliance frameworks including cybersecurity, data privacy, and business continuity.
• Act as the gatekeeper between PMO and engineering squads.
• Conduct impact assessment and prioritization of all incoming requests.
• Determine “best-fit” squad allocation (Efficiency vs Growth squads) based on complexity, urgency, business value, and technical dependencies.
• Ensure effective resource utilisation and balance between Business as Usual (BAU), enhancements, and innovation initiatives.
• Own high-level relationships, commercial negotiations, and contract management for core digital vendors.
• Monitor performance against contractual SLAs, financial commitments, and technical obligations.
• Evaluate vendor performance, technology roadmaps, and upgrade cycles to ensure continuous improvement.
• Enforce engineering, security, and integration standards across vendor-delivered solutions.
• Establish and enforce cross-squad engineering standards covering: Code quality & secure coding, Automated testing frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, Observability (logging, monitoring, tracing), Vulnerability scanning & DevSecOps practices.
• Drive continuous improvement - velocity, reliability, and performance.
• Ensure production systems meet enterprise-grade SLAs around uptime, scalability, and resilience.
• Develop and manage the department’s annual budget including: Headcount plans, Licensing and subscription fees, Vendor contracts, Cloud/hosting and integration costs, Training and tool procurement.
• Optimize cost-to-serve across digital channels, integrations, and engineering operations.
• Stay updated with insurance regulations and best practices to ensure compliance with industry standards.
• Adherence to the laws and regulations of Kenya, the policies and regulations within the insurance industry and all internal company policies and procedures.
• Ensuring compliance with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements and establishing mitigation measures against emerging business risks.
• Fostering a corporate culture that promotes ethical practices and good corporate citizenship while maintaining a conducive work environment.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop initiatives that promote a positive and inclusive company culture.
• Build a strong engineering culture rooted in craftsmanship, continuous learning, ownership, and collaboration.
• Introduce mentorship programs, guilds/communities of practice, internal tech talks, and certifications.
• Provide the much-needed transformational leadership to meet and surpass the expectations of stakeholders and juniors.

• Strategic & Systems Thinking
• Technical Depth & Architectural Leadership
• Vendor & Contract Governance
• People Leadership & Capability Development
• Agile Delivery & DevSecOps Expertise
• Innovation & Commercial Awareness
• Decision-Making Under Ambiguity
• Strong Communication & Stakeholder Influence

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, IT, or related field.
• Master’s degree will be an added advantage.
• Certifications in cloud architecture (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• DevOps/DevSecOps certifications
• TOGAF or similar architecture certification.