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NewGlobe

Vice President, Software Development

Lagos, NigeriaOn Site

Role details

About this role

Read the responsibilities and requirements before you apply.

Who We Are

NewGlobe supports visionary governments to transform public education systems, the cornerstone of a prosperous, equitable, and peaceful society.

With a comprehensive system transformation platform and data-driven educational services, NewGlobe delivers rapid and dramatic improvements in learning outcomes at state and nationwide scale. Through building impactful partnerships and programmes, NewGlobe ensures that all children have access to an education that will develop their full potential and create a foundation for growth and prosperity. 

NewGlobe leverages more than a decade of educational experience and proven impact in integrated school management, teacher professional development, instructional design innovation, technological system support, child-centered classroom practice, and parent engagement -- all grounded in learning science -- to ensure each teacher is empowered to engage children in transformational learning, and all children have the opportunity to develop to their full potential. Every day, NewGlobe supports governments to solve what were once seen as intractable problems, and by doing so, ensures this generation will be able to grow up to lead more fulfilled lives, while simultaneously building economic prosperity for themselves, their communities, and the globe. 

NewGlobe’s high-touch, intensive professional development programs, along with integrated school management, teacher support, and assessment software, enable schools to succeed. NewGlobe works within state and national curriculum and syllabi, ensuring all children are empowered to learn their own history, and master local content, while being globally competitive in mathematics and languages. The science of behaviour change and the science of learning is at the foundation of all programming. 

NewGlobe works with urgency because youth quickly becomes adulthood and relentlessly because improvement requires continuous problem-solving. NewGlobe is honoured to serve and to help rebuild trust in public systems. 

NewGlobe’s work is all encompassing and will challenge you to use your full mind, and heart, each day. We need bright minds who want to be part of building a new globe -- a more equitable globe -- to join us. 

 

Software Development

The Software Development department builds and runs the software that powers NewGlobe's programmes — the school-management, teacher-support, and assessment systems used across our markets. The department is organised into small, cross-functional delivery teams working on shared projects, supported by cross-cutting capabilities in solutions architecture, DevOps and CloudOps, and a dedicated data platform team. Based in Lagos and Amsterdam, the department is midway through a deliberate transformation into an AI-native engineering organisation.

About the Role

As Vice President, Software Development, you own NewGlobe's software engineering function and lead it through its most important transition yet: becoming a genuinely AI-native engineering organisation. You will set technical direction, build and grow the teams, and be accountable for delivery — but the defining part of the job is leading, from the front, the shift in how software gets built here.

This is not a role for someone who has only read about agentic development. We are looking for a leader who has actually driven this change inside a real organisation, learned from it, and can point to where they got to. You will pair with engineers, set the standard for AI-assisted development, and turn functions that used to be done by hand into systems and agents that do them at scale. And you will bring people with you — managing both the excitement and the anxiety that this shift creates for engineers at every level.

You will be based in Lagos, reporting to the Chief Technology Officer and working closely with our Lagos and peer leadership. It is a hands-on, high-leverage role in a lean, mission-driven, cost-conscious organisation.

 

What You Will Do

  • Own the software engineering function end to end — the delivery teams (each a lead plus two to three engineers) and the cross-cutting capabilities in solutions architecture, DevOps/CloudOps, and the data platform. Keep teams working together on shared projects rather than fragmenting into solo work.

  • Lead the transformation to a truly AI-native engineering organisation — set the strategy and roadmap to move the department up its AI-maturity curve. This is a multi-stage journey and we are still early; part of the job is bringing the whole team up, including those who haven't yet reached today's baseline, and then getting to the next level and the one after.

  • Lead from the front — stay genuinely hands-on. Pair with engineers and set the standard for AI-assisted development: agentic workflows, skills, memory, and the day-to-day craft. You are the head of engineering people look up to, not a project manager.

  • Turn functions into leverage — reshape roles like QA and product design away from per-team, per-task work toward “factory” capabilities: building the agents and systems that test and design at scale. Build the machine that tests the products, don't test them by hand.

  • Manage the human side of the change — take engineers through a fundamental shift in how they work, address the real fears that come with it, and turn the transition into something the team is energised by.

  • Deliver — ship against programme and product commitments with a lean, high-leverage team, and keep quality high as more of the work moves through an agentic toolchain.

  • Build the team — recruit, coach, performance-manage, and grow engineers, and partner closely with the CTO and with Lagos and peer leadership.

 

What You Should Have

  • A strong track record leading software engineering teams and functions — you have run teams, set technical direction, and been accountable for delivery.
  • Real, in-organisation experience driving AI-native / agentic engineering adoption — not side-project experimentation, and not just intent. You can walk us through the journey: where you started, what you learned, the level of maturity you reached, and the strategy you used to get there. The further along, the better.

  • Hands-on technical credibility — you still build, you can pair, and engineers respect your judgement. You'll be asked to pair (using AI tooling) as part of the process.

  • Experience leading people through technological change — reskilling, motivation, and managing resistance as roles and ways of working shift.

  • A builder's instinct for leverage — comfortable turning functions into tools and agents rather than solving everything with more headcount.

  • Comfort operating lean and with urgency — cost-conscious, resourceful, and effective in a mission-driven, high-growth environment.

  • Based in, or willing to relocate to, Lagos, Nigeria.

 

Why NewGlobe

Enter the dynamic world of NewGlobe, where we embrace the mindset of boundless potential. 

Here, we excel in innovative problem-solving and harness the power of data to revolutionize education. Committed to scaling our impact, we prioritize inclusivity and design solutions that empower learners worldwide. With relentless determination, we challenge conventions, analyze root causes, and craft inventive solutions to educational challenges.

Our culture values tangible results, focusing on data-driven decisions and proactive problem-solving. Integrity and accountability are our guiding principles as we uphold commitments, establish policies, and validate our efforts at every turn.

Through meticulous design, we shape behaviors, championing structured practices, precision, and transparency in our quest for educational excellence. As we journey forward, we embrace challenges and celebrate achievements in our mission to transform education.