As a Stream Lead in Full Stack Engineering based in our Singapore office at SMBC, you'll combine hands-on technical leadership with people management to drive our digital banking transformation in Asia Pacific. This role balances deep technical contribution (architecture, complex problem-solving, and hands-on coding) with team leadership while remaining deeply involved in critical technical decisions and delivery.

You'll lead by example, writing code alongside your team while providing architectural guidance and mentorship. Your dual focus on technical excellence and people development will be essential in building a high-performing engineering culture to enable SMBC's digital banking ambitions.

About the Opportunity

• Technical Leadership with Impact: Drive architecture decisions and hands-on development (50-70% coding) while leading an expert engineering team
• People Leadership: Mentor and develop a strong engineering team, fostering technical growth and career progression
• Global Collaboration: Partner with onshore and offshore delivery teams to deliver enterprise-scale banking solutions

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Delivery

• Maintain significant hands-on involvement in development (50-70% coding expected), focusing on critical features and complex technical challenges
• Lead solution design for major initiatives, ensuring architectural consistency across your team's deliverables
• Review and guide technical designs, conducting architecture reviews for significant features
• Champion engineering best practices including code reviews, testing standards, and comprehensive documentation
• Design cloud-native solutions that balance immediate needs with long-term platform flexibility and scalability
• Act as the technical escalation point for complex problems across the engineering organization

People Leadership & Team Development

• Manage and mentor an expert engineering team, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning
• Conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and career development discussions with direct reports
• Foster psychological safety and an inclusive environment that encourages innovation and healthy technical debate
• Partner with the Engineering Head on hiring decisions and talent development strategies

Delivery & Execution

• Own delivery timelines and quality for multiple concurrent projects across your team
• Break down complex requirements into actionable sprints and deliverables, balancing technical debt with feature delivery
• Remove blockers and coordinate with cross-functional teams (product, QA, DevOps) to ensure smooth delivery
• Implement and maintain development practices supporting rapid, reliable deployments

Stakeholder Management & Communication

• Represent your team in technical forums and leadership meetings
• Translate business requirements into technical roadmaps and communicate trade-offs clearly to stakeholders
• Build strong relationships with product management, QA, DevOps, and infrastructure teams
• Present technical initiatives and team achievements to senior leadership

Required Qualifications

Technical Expertise

Must demonstrate high proficiency in at least 3 of the following areas:

• Full Stack Development: 10+ years of hands-on experience with modern web technologies like React/Next.js, Node.js for front-end and/or Java/Spring Boot or similar for back-end technologies
• Cloud Architecture: Proven experience designing and implementing solutions on Azure (preferred) or AWS/GCP, including microservices and serverless patterns
• Mobile Development: Experience with React Native, Flutter, or native iOS/Android development
• DevOps Practices: Strong understanding of CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and observability
• Database & Data Systems: Experience with both SQL and NoSQL databases, caching strategies, and event streaming (Kafka preferred)
• API Design: Expertise in RESTful API design, GraphQL, and API gateway patterns

Leadership & Management

• 5+ years of engineering management experience or technical leadership with direct reports
• Proven track record of hiring, developing, and retaining engineering talent
• Experience managing performance, including coaching underperformers and promoting high performers
• Demonstrated ability to balance significant technical contribution (50%+) with people management responsibilities
• Experience working with distributed teams across multiple time zones

Professional Qualities

• Strong technical judgment with ability to make pragmatic trade-offs between perfection and delivery
• Excellent communication skills - ability to explain complex technical concepts to varied audiences
• Growth mindset with continuous learning orientation
• Comfortable with ambiguity and able to drive clarity in uncertain situations
• Cultural sensitivity and experience working in global, multicultural environments

Preferred Qualifications

• Previous experience in banking, financial services, or regulated industries
• Experience with organizational transformation and change management
• Active participation in tech communities through speaking, writing, or open source contributions
• Experience building engineering teams from early stages