WELCOME TO OLX
At OLX, we work together to build a more sustainable world through trade.
We make it safe, smart, and convenient to buy and sell cars, find housing, get jobs, buy and sell household goods, and more. Our colleagues around the world help to serve millions of people around the world every month, through its well-loved consumer brands including OLX, Otodom, AutoTrader, Property24.
Join OLX and see how far you can go.
This role can be based anywhere in Portugal
As a Head of Engineering, you'll provide strategic technical leadership across multiple engineering teams, managing Engineering Managers who lead our software development efforts. You'll be responsible for ensuring technical excellence, fostering team health, and aligning engineering execution with business strategy across your domain.
You'll work closely with Product, Design, and Technology leadership to shape technical direction, drive architectural decisions, and build high-performing engineering organizations. In this role, you'll balance strategic thinking with hands-on support, helping your teams achieve autonomy while ensuring delivery excellence.
What you will be doing:
Lead a group of cross-functional software teams: Manage and grow 3-6 Engineering Managers, their teams (20-40 engineers total), and Staff engineers. Coach your managers on team building, technical decisions, and delivery challenges.Own engineering execution, quality and technical direction across multiple product areas.Act as a hands-on engineering leader with a strong point of view on architecture, practices and trade-offs, providing good judgement in prioritization exercises.Drive delivery and prioritization ensuring teams have clear roadmaps tied to business value.
Engineering Leadership
Set and uphold high standards for code quality, system design, reliability, and securityEstablish clear engineering principles (simplicity, scalability, maintainability, operability)Make and defend technical decision with long-term impactReview and guide architecture across teams, step in when systems are at risk
Execution & Delivery
Ensure teams consistently deliver high-quality software on predictable timelinesBalance speed vs. quality with informed, explicit trade-offsDrive operational excellence: monitoring, incident response, postmortems, and continuous improvementIdentify and remove systemic bottlenecks
People & Team Management
Lead, coach, and develop Engineering Managers and Senior Engineers (Staff/Principals)Build strong teams through hiring, onboarding, and performance managementCreate an environment of ownership and accountabilitySet clear expectations and give direct, actionable feedback
Product & Design Partnership
Work as a true peer to Product and Design leadershipHelp shape product strategy by grounding decisions in technical feasibility and customer impactPush for solving the right problems, not just shipping featuresEnsure engineering choices improve user experience and long-term product health
Who we are looking for:
10+ years of overall experience in software engineering, including hands-on work on large-scale distributed systems, with 5+ years of experience managing engineering teams (20+ engineers, directly or through managers).Strong engineering judgment, able to say no and explain why.Comfortable going deep into technical discussions; Solid foundation in modern software development practices.Track record of developing people and building high-performing teams.Clear, opinionated, and respectful communicator; Proficient in English (written and verbal).Maintains a high bar for quality, while making deliberate, context aware tradeoffs - “good enough” is a conscious decision, not an accident.
Bonus points for:
Experience in multi-country or distributed engineering organizations.Leading large-scale technical transformations.Strong instincts around dev experience and platform thinkingContributing to engineering strategy and organizational standards.
Our Benefits:
Flexible benefits plan (Coverflex)3 extra vacation daysHealth Insurance Multicare (extendable to family)Life InsuranceRemote work monthly allowance Meal Allowance (10€ net per day in meal card)Urban Sports subscription (pack M)English & Portuguese ClassesDiscount websiteWelcome pack
