Lead Clojure Developer

Lead Clojure Developer

As the Lead Clojure Developer in a dynamic omnichannel retail environment, you will spearhead the development of a robust, scalable, and flexible platform to power the company's retail offerings across e-commerce, point-of-sale (POS) channels, and warehousing systems. Your expertise in functional programming, architecture design, and retail systems will be critical to integrating online and offline customer experiences while optimising inventory management, order fulfilment, and logistics operations. You will drive innovation and ensure operational excellence through the delivery of a unified platform.

What will you do?

• Architect & Implement
  • Own and evolve the technical & architectural roadmap, ensuring systems are scalable, secure, and maintainable
  • Design, build, and deploy fault-tolerant services that balance performance and trade-offs
  • Stay current with new technologies, proactively updating dependencies and patching vulnerabilities
• Champion Observability
  • Establish and advocate best practices for monitoring, logging, and telemetry – and mentor the team on their adoption
  • Use data-driven insights to identify issues, optimise performance, and guide continuous improvement
• Lead & Mentor
  • Provide technical guidance and mentorship to the engineering team, setting high standards of quality and innovation
  • Conduct design and code reviews, sharing feedback to strengthen the team's capabilities and outcomes
  • Support hiring, onboarding, and professional development of engineers
• Streamline Processes
  • Define frameworks, tools, and workflows to boost developer productivity and reduce duplication
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate business needs into technical requirements and actionable plans
  • Maintain clear documentation and guidelines that enhance knowledge sharing and make development more efficient and consistent
• Align with Business Goals
  • Collaborate with stakeholders to help develop and refine the technical strategy and roadmap, ensuring alignment with key initiatives
  • Contribute to setting and achieving KPIs, driving initiatives that deliver measurable impact
  • Ensure engineering efforts support wider business priorities, translating vision into actionable plans

What will you bring?

• 10+ years of hands-on programming experience building web or mobile applications
• Strong experience in system monitoring, logging, tracing, and triaging tools
• Experience with cloud infrastructure
• Experience with build, CI/CD & deployment pipelines and related technologies like Kubernetes, Docker, Jenkins etc.
• Effective problem solving skills, ability to make design trade-offs, balancing the long-term "big picture" and short-term implications of design decisions
• Effective communication and collaboration skills, including consensus building, conflict resolution, influence and persuasion skills
• Proven leadership in project management, technical execution and mentorship of other engineers
• A degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience in a related field 

What does our stack look like?

We take pride in building our own tech — from our online store and mobile POS (Point of Sale) app, to our warehouse systems and admin dashboards. This enables us to drive retail innovation and craft experiences that delight. Our stack comprises:

• Front end: Clojurescript, React (RUM), Javascript
• Back end: Clojure, Java, PHP
• Infrastructure: Nginx / Apache, AWS, Kafka / RabbitMQ, Redis, Memcached, Docker, Cloudflare, Datadog, Sentry

Learn more about tech at Yuppiechef

Who are we?

We're Yuppiechef, and see ourselves as helping people find moments of joy at home. We're here to offer outstanding and memorable service, while selling things that our customers love using. We're foodies and home lovers, aesthetes and early adopters, and we're passionate learners more than we're experts. We have a loved online store and 21 beautiful physical stores across SA, and we're a proud member of the dynamic Mr Price Group. 

Our head office in Westlake, Cape Town, has a view of the mountains, a beautiful Rancilio coffee machine, and plenty of books to borrow. It's filled with people who value excellence, and who like spending time with one another over coffee and lunches. We're always looking for new people to teach us new ways of doing things and help us make big things happen. We'd love to know if you might be one of them.

What's the pay and benefits?

• A collaborative, inclusive work environment
• Total Cost to Company (CTC) package, including: Medical Aid contributions with Discovery, Life, Death & Disability cover, Retirement Annuity, Employee Assistance programme
• Quarterly bonuses based on the company's performance
• 17 days annual leave, increasing to 20 days with length of service
• Half-day Fridays once a month
• Hybrid work policy (remote possible for the right candidate) – one in-office day per week at our Cape Town-based office in Westlake
• Staff discount on all products from Yuppiechef and MRPG Retailers

Yuppiechef is a member of Mr Price Group Limited, an equal opportunity employer, and is committed to Employment Equity. By applying for this role, you agree with our terms and conditions.