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Senior/Lead Software Engineer (Technical Lead Manager), Applied Experiments

  • Hybrid
    • Singapore, Central Singapore, Singapore
  • Software Engineering

Job description

Who We Are

Open Government Products (OGP) operates like a startup within the government. We are a fast-paced, dynamic team of engineers, designers, and product managers dedicated to public good. We autonomously identify opportunities to solve public problems using tech, rapidly prototype, and launch solutions, from citizen apps to automating public agency operations. Embracing an open-sourced and flat hierarchy, we cut through bureaucracy to focus on real-world, user-centric innovations that drive change.

As part of the Applied Experiments Division (AED) within OGP, we take on the most ambiguous open problems and run experiments to help inform better decisions in government. Some past examples like ERP X, Armoury, Maps, Pair and ParkingSG are just a few examples of how we've made a difference in the lives of citizens. You can learn more about our products on our website.

The Team

We're hiring for the AI Native team. Our mandate: rethink how product development happens across OGP, with AI at the centre of how people work.

We work with product teams and with OGP's central tooling team. We build shared AI tooling on top of existing infrastructure and help product teams adopt it across how they code, plan, and operate. Our success metric: teams across OGP move faster because of how they use AI in their workflow.

About the Role

We're looking for a Senior/Lead Software Engineer to lead 1–2 engineers in AED as a Technical Lead Manager. Rather than owning one long-lived product, your team will run a portfolio of experiments starting new ones, running several in parallel, and handing them over, merging or winding them down once they've answered the questions they set out to test.

As a Technical Lead Manager, you set technical direction across the portfolio, grow the engineering team and stay hands-on where needed. You balance speed, reuse and stage-appropriate standards while safeguarding data, security and incident response. You hire, coach and support engineers’ growth, own how the team spends its time, and work with PMs, designers, policy officers and government partners to turn unclear problems into meaningful experiments that inform decisions.

What you'll do

  • Set technical direction for the team's experiments. Set architecture and engineering standards for each experiment, balancing speed with reliability.

  • Lead hands-on. Take on the hardest or riskiest parts of an experiment yourself when that helps, review the team's work, and keep live experiments safe, reliable and observable.

  • Lead and grow engineers. Hire, onboard and coach engineers, with clear expectations, regular feedback, and fair performance and career conversations.

  • Shape what the team works on. Work with PMs, designers and policy officers to define experiments, set success and stop criteria, and focus engineering effort where it adds value.

  • Own the follow-through. Help the team learn from each experiment, recommend next steps, and manage handovers or wind-downs responsibly.

  • Represent engineering. Communicate technical options, risks and trade-offs clearly to partners and leadership, and share good practices across AED.

What we're looking for

  • Strong, hands-on engineering across the stack. Experience building and running production systems, with sound judgement on speed, simplicity and stage-appropriate quality.

  • Technical leadership. You've led technical direction, made tough architecture and standards decisions, and taken responsibility for the outcomes.

  • People leadership. You've coached and grown engineers and been involved in hiring. Formal management experience is welcome but not required.

  • Ownership and initiative in ambiguity. You take responsibility for a problem area, not just a task, and help your team find the way forward without waiting for top-down direction.

  • Problem-first, not solution-first. You help your team change course based on evidence and see value in ruling out approaches that don't work.

  • Collaboration and communication. You work closely with PMs, designers and policy officers, and explain complex technical ideas in simple, actionable terms to non-technical audiences.

  • Experience using AI effectively. You've used AI in software delivery, understand its limits, and set guardrails to keep your team accountable for quality.

  • A genuine drive to do public good. You care about outcomes for citizens and public officers, and you're accountable for the people and resources invested in each experiment.

What matters less than you'd expect

  • Years of experience or a management title. We care about what you've owned, the people you've grown and the decisions you made. Time served isn't an accurate proxy for any of that.

  • Related degree or formal credentials. CS degrees, ML backgrounds and policy qualifications are all welcome, none required.

  • Specific language, framework or stack. Fundamentals and the ability to learn fast matter more.

  • Government or policy experience. We'll teach you how decisions move through government, but we can't teach you to take initiative.

  • Having led one long-lived product. Experience running production systems helps, but the goal here is a portfolio of well-answered questions, not one polished product.

Interested in the role? We'd love to hear from you. Apply now to join us at OGP!

Working at OGP

Ownership and Autonomy — Beyond technical tasks, this means having autonomy to voice opinions and suggest future directions. Building what you believe in drives the creation of great solutions.

Rapid Prototyping — We prioritize testing ideas over debating them, allowing us to identify problems quickly and convey possibilities to others. This fail-fast approach accelerates innovation.

Flexibility — We provide flexible work arrangements based on what works best for our team and its members, fostering a productive and supportive environment.

Continuous Learning — Drive professional growth by exploring new architectures, frameworks, and technologies. With dedicated yearly learning months and hackathons, continuous learning is essential as we tackle innovative ideas and challenges.

Mission-Driven — Our work is dedicated to the public good, aiming to improve the lives of Singapore citizens. We focus on creating impactful solutions that enhance the community and the place we call home.

Products we’ve built include:

  • ScamShield - iOS and Android mobile apps that help users check and report suspicious communications. The apps automatically filter known scams using an AI-powered machine learning classifier, while an Admin Dashboard allows police to verify reported scams.

  • ParkingSG - A mobile app alternative to parking coupons that lets users pay for, extend and refund their parking sessions using their phones.

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

  • data.gov.sg - An open repository of the Singapore Government's public data. It helps people understand data through visualisations and articles and provides real-time APIs for developers.

  • Isomer - Provides government agencies with an easy-to-deploy website building and hosting service to create usable, secure and fast informational websites.

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

  • PaySG - Enables digital payments for government services and was initially developed for payments related to COVID-19 swab tests and Stay-Home Notices for incoming travellers.

An overview of other OGP products can be found on our website.

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I hereby give my consent to Open Government Products, Government Technology Agency (“OGP”) to: Obtain and verify information from or with any source (including third parties) as may be deemed appropriate by OGP and/or any relevant Government agency for the purposes of assessing my application for employment and/or for recommendation to a third party for employment with or engagement by that third party (see below for more information). Share my personal data set out in this application form and any other personal data subsequently provided by me arising out of or in connection with my application for employment with other Government agencies or a third party vendor appointed by OGP for the purposes of recruitment and/or review of recruitment practices, and for such personal data to also be used as part of de-identified and aggregated data for reporting purposes.  

Additionally, where relevant, OGP may share my personal data set out in this application form and any other personal data subsequently provided by me to a third party for that third party to consider employing or otherwise engaging me to undertake work relevant to OGP. I understand and acknowledge that the collection, use and/or disclosure of such personal data may also be subject to that third party’s privacy terms. I declare that all the information given by me is true to the best of my knowledge and voluntarily given.   By clicking the 'Apply' button, I hereby certify that I have read and understood all of the clauses above and that I agree to all of them.