Head – Digital Engineering & Innovation at Jubilee Insurance

Role Purpose

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.

Main duties and responsibilities:

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.


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.


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.