APPLICATION PRODUCT OWNER / DEVELOPMENT LEAD

We’re hiring

Application Product Owner / Development Lead

Technical lead who owns what we build next, directs our development partners and makes sure it lands in our schools

About Apex

Apex is a growing network of independent schools in the Western Cape, scaling towards ten schools and around 10,000 learners. We exist to give children from under-served communities an education that changes what is possible for them and their families.

We may be mission-driven, but we run like a startup. The team is small, the standards are high and we have a bias for action. If you see an opportunity and don’t take it, that’s on you.

We are now building our own technology capability for the first time. A small internal team will own the direction, the decisions and the know-how. External partners (including our AWS partner and specialist development partners) will add capacity where we need it.

The role

We have more good ideas than delivery capacity. Our Business Systems Analyst has written a strong product specification and knows the edtech space well. What’s missing is someone who can turn that into working software, week after week.

That means owning the roadmap and deciding what gets built next, directing our external development partners so it gets built well, and making sure it lands in schools and gets used. A great prototype with no owner and no route into schools goes nowhere. You’re the person who makes sure that doesn’t happen again.

This is the first of two posts in this role. The role is broad, so we’re resourcing it with two people. Most development goes through our partners, so the job is mainly about direction and ownership: the roadmap, acceptance criteria, source-code control and release decisions. You’ll stay hands-on where it counts, with prototyping, integrations and AI-assisted development.

Where you’ll start

Your first product areas are our learning platform (classroom experience, teacher dashboards and integrations) and supporting the AI marking tool through its validation pilot. Once the School Information System decision is made, we expect to confirm the second post, and you’ll help shape how the two posts split the work.

You’ll deliver on behalf of the business owners. The Head of Blended Learning is accountable for the AI marking tool and the learning platform, and you’re accountable for getting it delivered well.

The landscape you’re walking into

• A Moodle-based learning management system running on AWS, live in our schools and about to be tested by network growth.
• A School Information System review still under way, weighing off-the-shelf against custom development. We’re continuing with our existing system through 2027, with parallel running planned and the old system switched off during 2028.
• Sage Intacct selected as our ERP, with implementation already under way, including planned feeds into the Apex Intelligence Platform.
• The Apex Intelligence Platform, our data, dashboards and analytics programme, with an AI layer that lets leadership query school data in natural language, hosted in South Africa.
• An AI marking tool built in-house, currently being piloted with teachers to validate how well it works.
• Chromebooks for learners, fibre being rolled out to new campuses, and national reporting obligations through SA-SAMS and LURITS.
• A fixed technology budget per learner that has to cover the team and every licence for the long haul. What something costs to run in year ten matters as much as what it costs to build.
• POPIA and children’s personal information. Consent, retention and de-identification are built into the requirements for our learner-data systems, not added as a checklist at the end.
• Apex owns its repositories, source code, documentation and intellectual property, whoever builds the software. Dependency on any single vendor is a risk we manage deliberately.

What you’ll do

Roadmap and product

• Own the roadmap and backlog for your product areas, on behalf of the business owners. Turn the specification and feedback from schools into clear, prioritised work with testable acceptance criteria.
• Make the calls on scope and sequence with the Head of Technology and the business owners of each initiative. Say no when it’s the right answer.
• Run user testing, pilots and rollouts with teachers and school staff, moving from one school to the network.
• Measure adoption and impact after release. Fix or stop what isn’t working.
• Make sure every build has a business owner, a clear purpose and a home once it’s live.

Source code, releases and partners

• Direct our external development partners day to day: brief the work, review it, and accept or reject what’s delivered against the agreed criteria. The Head of Technology owns the contracts, vendor performance and governance.
• Own source-code control. Apex owns its repositories, source code, documentation and IP, and you make sure that’s true in practice: access, documentation and handover.
• Own release decisions, working with our AWS partner on deployments, release monitoring and incident response.
• Set up and run a lightweight delivery rhythm: planning, demos, release notes and a visible roadmap that school leaders can follow.
• Make sure sensible engineering basics are in place across internal and partner work: source control, code review, automated testing, CI/CD, environments and documentation.
• Make sure what we ship is secure and POPIA-compliant, with consent, retention, de-identification and access control built into the requirements for learner data.

Hands-on work

• Stay hands-on where it adds most: prototyping, integrations and AI-assisted development. Your code is there to prove ideas, unblock work and keep you close enough to the technology to review partner work with authority.

How this role fits with the Architect

The Enterprise and Solution Architect owns what we build and how it fits together across the portfolio. You own getting it built, shipped and adopted in your product areas. You’ll challenge each other and both get your hands dirty. Where the two overlap, the Architect holds the design authority and you hold the delivery plan. On vendors, the Head of Technology owns contracts and governance, the Architect owns design assurance, and you own day-to-day briefing, review and acceptance. Our Business Systems Analyst works alongside you on requirements and domain detail.

The team you’ll be part of

• Head of Technology, who owns the IT strategy, budget and operations, as well as vendor contracts, vendor performance and governance.
• Enterprise and Solution Architect, who owns the target architecture and design assurance of the big technical decisions.
• Application Product Owner / Development Lead (this role), who owns the roadmap, source code and releases, and directs our development partners day to day.
• Business Systems Analyst, who knows the edtech space well and has written much of our product specification.
• Data & Analytics Lead, who owns reporting and the data platform.
• IT Administrator / Coordinator, who keeps devices, accounts and day-to-day IT support running across our schools.
• External partners for cloud operations, DevOps and development capacity.

Both technology roles deliver on behalf of the business owners of each initiative, who stay accountable for the outcomes. For example, the Head of Blended Learning is accountable for the AI marking tool and the learning platform, and the Head of Schools is accountable for the School Information System review.

Your first 90 days

• Get to know the LMS, how it’s configured and extended, our AWS setup and how releases happen today. Spend real time in our schools.
• Confirm Apex owns and can access all its repositories, with documentation and handover arrangements in place.
• Set up the delivery basics: roadmap, backlog, board, repository standards, CI/CD, environments and a shared definition of done.
• Support the Head of Blended Learning and teachers through the AI marking tool validation pilot, and plan wider rollout only if the results support it.
• Ship the first visible improvements to teachers on the learning platform.
• Agree a working model with our external development partner, including how work is briefed, reviewed and accepted.

What success looks like after 12 months

• Delivery is predictable. School leaders know what’s coming, when, and why.
• The AI marking tool validation is complete. If it checked out, the tool is in wider use, with teachers reviewing and correcting marks before they’re finalised.
• Learning platform improvements have shipped and we can show they’re being used.
• Our external partners deliver to Apex standards, and we can see what we’re paying for.
• All Apex code sits in Apex-owned repositories, documented and ready for handover.
• The roadmap, codebase and processes are clear enough that the second post-holder could join and be productive in weeks, not months.

What you bring

Must have

• Around 7 years in software development, with at least 2 to 3 years leading delivery as a tech lead, development lead or similar. Ideally you’ve also owned product decisions.
• Product sense: you can own a roadmap, write clear acceptance criteria, prioritise on value, and work patiently with non-technical users.
• Experience directing outsourced or partner development teams, including reviewing and accepting their work.
• Strong hands-on skills in at least one modern stack (for example TypeScript/Node, Python or PHP), plus SQL, relational databases, APIs and integrations.
• Practical cloud experience, ideally AWS, including CI/CD and containers.
• Working knowledge of POPIA and security fundamentals.
• An AI-native way of working. You use AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot or similar) every day and can show how they speed up prototyping and review. You’ve built with LLM APIs, you know how to test and evaluate AI output, and you understand the risks.
• Calm under pressure. You own outcomes, not just tasks.

A real advantage

• Edtech experience: Moodle (including plugin development in PHP), learning or school administration systems, assessment or learning analytics.
• Experience in South African schools, education non-profits or similar mission-driven organisations.
• Data and dashboard work with BI tools.
• Startup or small-team experience where you had to build the process as well as the product.
• A product owner certification (CSPO, PSPO). Nice to have, never a substitute for shipping.

This role is probably not for you if

• You only want to write code and would rather someone else dealt with partners and stakeholders.
• You want someone else to decide what’s important.
• You need a polished process before you can get started.

How to apply

Send your CV, a link to something you’ve built or led (a repo, a product or a short write-up), and a few lines on how AI tools have changed the way you build software, to recruitment@apex-schools.org with the job title in the subject line, by 10 November 2026.

The successful candidate will be required to undergo pre-employment checks, including a criminal record check.

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted directly. If you have not heard from us within 30 days of the closing date, please consider your application unsuccessful.

By applying, you consent to Apex Education Group processing your personal information for recruitment purposes in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). Your information will be kept confidential and retained only as long as necessary for this process.

Apex Education Group is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to employment equity, and appointments will be made in line with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998.