Lead Software Engineer

Who we are

Open Government Products is an in-house team of engineers, designers, and product managers who build technology for the public good. We proactively identify areas where technology can help, test our prototypes with actual users, and bring our best ones to launch. This includes everything from building better frontend applications for citizens, to automating the internal operations of public agencies. We use and release open source software, keep a flat hierarchy, and bypass bureaucracy to focus on delivery. We work on real problems, build for the user, and push for change.

Projects we have worked on include:

Covid-19 Vaccination National Appointment System - A suite of systems built to enable Singapore's national vaccination campaign for Covid-19. This includes informational sites, appointment booking systems, and records management systems.

Data.gov.sg - An open repository of all the Singapore Government's public data. It helps people understand the data using visualizations and articles, and provides real-time APIs for developers to use.

Parking.sg - A mobile app alternative to parking coupons. It lets users pay, extend, and refund their parking sessions just using their phones.

FormSG - A form builder tool for agencies to self-service and create online forms that capture classified data, with the goal of replacing paper forms.

Isomer - Isomer provides government agencies with an easy-to-deploy static website building and hosting service to create usable, secure and faster informational websites quickly.

RedeemSG - RedeemSG helps the Singapore Government to create, send and track redemptions of digital vouchers easily.

PaySG - PaySG was developed to enable digital payments for government services, and was initially used for payments for COVID-19 swab tests and Stay-Home Notices for incoming travellers to Singapore.

An overview of other OGP products can be found on our website https://open.gov.sg

What the role is

Your job will be to provide engineering contributions and technical leadership to your engineering team, to make an impact on public good. You will write and contribute code directly, as well as provide technical leadership and guiding engineering decision-making. You will also contribute toward improving engineering tooling and practices across multiple product teams. If you are willing and suitable, you may also take on a small number of engineer reports within your product team as a Tech Lead Manager, where you will be responsible for the growth, development, and team management of your reports alongside your individual contributor contributions.

You will work on meaningful projects that solve problems pertinent to society, from transportation, to education and healthcare. The public sector is full of opportunities where even the simplest software can have a big impact on people’s lives. You will have direct ownership of your work (over 70% of our projects start as ground-up initiatives). Rather than work on commercial ventures, you will work to improve how we live as a society through what we can offer as a government.

We use open source software, cloud services, and modern tech stacks as much as possible. These include (but are not limited to) GitHub, AWS, React Native, MongoDB and Stripe. Knowing what to build and what to reuse lets us avoid wasting time on solved problems and focus on delivering actual value. Your engineering contributions can thus range from coding new systems from scratch to using and adapting the best solutions that the wider development community has to offer.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Making technical contributions, and providing leadership to a lean (typically 2-5) team of engineers across the stack (e.g. cloud infrastructure, code, security, testing, documentation etc.)
• Proactively identifying and initiating worthwhile engineering initiatives to maximise OGP’s impact on the public good
• Establishing practices and tools in order to encourage a strong engineering culture and maximise engineering effectiveness and impact
• Sharing your expertise and mentoring other engineers
• Helping with the recruitment of OGP engineers, particularly for more senior hires

If you are taking on managerial responsibilities as a tech lead-manager, you will also be responsible for the learning, development, and performance of your direct reports.

What it is like working here

Rapid Prototyping - Instead of spending too much time debating ideas we prefer testing them. This identifies potential problems quickly, and more importantly, conveys what is possible to others easily.

Ownership - In addition to technical responsibilities, this means having opinions on what is being done and having ideas on what should be done next. Building something that you believe in is the best way to build something good.

Continuous Learning - Working on new ideas often means not fully understanding what you are working on. Taking time to learn new approaches, architectures, frameworks, technologies, and even languages is not just encouraged but essential.

Also, we're Great Place to Work™ certified!

Who we are looking for

We work mostly in TypeScript. However, we don’t require experience in any specific programming language or technology. Core competency in at least one language and the ability to learn is what matters to us.

Concretely for Lead Software Engineers, we look for people who:

• Have a demonstrated ability to build high-quality software - we prize software that is impactful, performant, well-architected, and maintainable.

• Provide technical leadership to their engineering teams - upholding high standards, making sound value judgements and well-considered trade-offs between technical approaches that save their teams time and effort.

• Take initiative to make things happen - part of our job is to push for change and improvement in government, so we need to challenge the status quo and not wait for instruction.

• Able to operate under ambiguity - Lead engineers should keep their teams on track, such as by questioning hidden assumptions or clarifying stakeholder expectations.

• Want to work for the public good - We are public servants, we serve the public. This sometimes means ignoring political pressures and misguided policies. We need people who will push back if something is not in the public interest.