Vertical Institute Hiring! Full Time Lead Software Engineer (Onsite) in - Ricebowl

Lead Software Engineer (Onsite)

at Singapore’s leading AI training provider

Full-time | Singapore | Technology | Onsite

The opportunityVertical Institute is looking for a Lead Software Engineer to own the technical direction of a small, high-output engineering team building the systems that power our learning platform and internal operations. This is a hands-on leadership role - you will still write and review code, but your primary contribution is making the team's technical decisions sound, the architecture scalable, and the engineering culture strong.You will work closely with the CEO and cross-functional stakeholders across admissions, sales, finance, and operations to translate business priorities into a technical roadmap - and then lead the team to execute against it. The systems you design and the standards you set will shape how the company's technology function grows from here.

This is not a role for someone who wants to step back from the code and into meetings. We are looking for a lead who is credible in both directions - technical enough to make the right architecture calls and lead by example, and clear-headed enough to set priorities, unblock the team, and communicate trade-offs to non-technical leadership. If you have done this before in a lean, fast-moving environment, we want to talk.

What you will ownTechnical leadership and architecture

• Set the technical direction for the engineering team - making architecture decisions, defining standards, and ensuring the systems we build are scalable, secure, and maintainable.
• Own the technical roadmap in partnership with the CEO, translating business requirements into a coherent build sequence with clear trade-offs articulated.
• Lead design and code reviews that raise the quality bar for the whole team, not just catch errors.
• Identify and address technical debt before it becomes a constraint on the company's ability to move fast.

Hands-on engineering

• Design, build, and maintain core systems supporting the learning platform and internal business operations - remaining an active, contributing engineer, not just a technical director.
• Develop internal tools and automation workflows that meaningfully improve efficiency across sales, admissions, finance, and student operations.
• Design and implement integrations across LMS, CRM, payment gateways, and third-party SaaS platforms with an eye on long-term maintainability, not just short-term delivery.

AI and workflow innovation

• Lead the identification and implementation of AI-powered features, agents, and automation workflows that reduce operational overhead and improve decision-making across the business.
• Stay ahead of the practical applications of AI in an education and operations context, bringing ideas to the team before the business asks for them.

Team development and engineering culture

• Mentor and develop the engineers on the team - helping them grow technically and building a culture where good engineering is the expectation, not the exception.
• Set and enforce engineering best practices around documentation, testing, deployment, and system reliability.
• Build a team environment where engineers take genuine ownership of their work and feel accountable for outcomes, not just outputs.

Stakeholder communication and cross-functional collaboration

• Communicate technical decisions, constraints, and trade-offs clearly to the CEO and non-technical stakeholders - making the invisible visible without overwhelming people with detail.
• Work closely with teams across the business to understand operational pain points and translate them into technical solutions that actually solve the problem.
• Be the person technical and non-technical stakeholders trust equally - credible with engineers and accessible to everyone else.

What we look forWe are looking for someone who has already operated at this level - not someone who is ready to try it for the first time. Beyond that:

• Strong experience in full-stack or backend web application development, with a proven track record of designing and operating production systems independently.
• Demonstrated experience leading or mentoring a team of engineers - setting direction, reviewing work, and raising the technical standard around you.
• Solid command of system design, scalability, and performance optimisation - you make architecture decisions you can defend under scrutiny.
• Experience with APIs, databases, and modern web frameworks. Familiarity with Ruby on Rails is an advantage.
• Strong ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to non-technical stakeholders - you translate, not just report.
• A pragmatic, delivery-oriented mindset - you ship things that work and improve them iteratively, rather than waiting for the perfect solution.

Nice to have

• Experience with Learning Management Systems or EdTech platforms.
• Experience integrating SaaS tools across CRM, payments, and analytics.
• Experience building AI workflows using modern AI APIs or automation frameworks.
• Prior experience in a Lead Software Engineer or engineering leadership role at a startup or scale-up.

Why this roleGenuine technical authority

• You set the architecture, the standards, and the direction. The technical decisions are yours to make and yours to stand behind.

Direct CEO access

• You work directly with the CEO on the technical roadmap. Your input shapes business decisions, not just engineering backlogs.

AI at the core

• You are building AI-powered systems for an AI training company. The subject matter and the tools are genuinely aligned in a way most tech roles cannot offer.

Build the function

• The engineering team is lean and the scope is large. What you build here - technically and culturally - will define how technology operates at Vertical Institute as the company scales.

About Vertical InstituteVertical Institute is Singapore's leading AI and technology training provider. We are a SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) Registered Training Provider and IBF-accredited institution. Over 50,000 professionals have trained with us across individual programmes and enterprise engagements, including partnerships with government agencies, MNCs, and financial institutions. We are headquartered at the Lifelong Learning Institute, Paya Lebar.

Work Location: In person