Principal Engineer

Roles & Responsibilities

About Sleek

Through proprietary software and AI, along with a focus on customer delight, Sleek makes the back-office easy for micro SMEs.

We give Entrepreneurs time back to focus on what they love doing - growing their business and being with customers. With a surging number of Entrepreneurs globally, we are innovating in a highly lucrative space.

We operate 3 business segments:

1. Corporate Secretary: Automating the company incorporation, secretarial, filing, Nominee Director, mailroom and immigration processes via custom online robots and SleekSign. We are the market leaders in Singapore with ~5% market share of all new business incorporations
2. Accounting & Bookkeeping: Redefining what it means to do Accounting, Bookkeeping, Tax and Payroll thanks to our proprietary SleekBooks ledger, AI tools and exceptional customer service
3. FinTech payments: Overcoming a key challenge for Entrepreneurs by offering digital banking services to new businesses

Sleek launched in 2017 and now has around 15,000 customers across our offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the UK. We have around 450 staff with an intact startup mindset.

We have achieved >70% compound annual growth in Revenue over the last 5 years and as a result have been recognised by The Financial Times, The Straits Times, Forbes and LinkedIn as one of the fastest growing companies in Asia. Backed by world-class investors, we are on track to be one of the few cash flow positive, tech-enabled unicorns based out of Singapore.

Some other great things about working at Sleek…

Humility and kindness: Humility is a core attribute we hire for, which means we have a culture of not taking ourselves too seriously and being able to laugh. Kindness is also incredibly important. We are committed to creating and nurturing a diverse and inclusive environment.

Flexibility: You'll be able to work from home 2 days per week. If you need to start early or start late to cater to your family or other needs, we don't mind, so long as you get your work done and proactively communicate. You can also work fully remote from anywhere in the world for 1 month each year

Financial benefits: We pay competitive market salaries and provide staff with generous paid time off and holiday schedules. Additionally, you'll be able to access our S$1,200 pa flexi benefits scheme for home office equipment or health and fitness expenditure. Certain staff at Sleek are also eligible for our employee share ownership plan and can share in the upside of our stellar growth trajectory as we work toward listing on a prominent stock exchange in the Asia Pacific region.

Personal growth: You'll get a lot of responsibility and autonomy at Sleek - we move at a fast pace so you'll be making decisions, making mistakes and learning. There's also a range of internal and external facing training programmes we run. We're also at the forefront of utilising AI in our space and are developing a regional centre of AI excellence. It is our intention that if you leave Sleek, you leave as a more well-rounded person and professional.

Sleek is also a proudly certified B Corp. Since we started our journey in 2017, we've been committed to building Sleek as a force for good. In just over 5 years, we've joined a community of industry leaders like Patagonia, Ben & Jerry's, and P&G who are building an inclusive, equitable, and a regenerative economy. We have planted over 29,271 trees to reforest our ecosystem and saved 7 tons of paper from landfills by processing over 1.4M pages through SleekSign. We aim to be Carbon Neutral by 2030.

About the role

We are looking for a Principal Engineer that is excited about the below Mission and Outcomes over the next 6-12 months.

Mission: As a Principal Engineer, your mission is to work closely with product teams to translate our business vision into impactful technical solutions. You will drive the alignment of product requirements with strategic goals, ensuring each feature not only meets user needs but also advances our core objectives. Your role will be pivotal in bridging the gap between business aspirations and technical execution, tackling complex challenges, and setting the stage for an exceptional user experience. Your expertise will shape the roadmap, influence design decisions, and empower our team to deliver innovative, high-quality solutions every day.

Outcomes:

1. Eliminate pending bank statement requests by establishing a proactive retrieval process and automated follow-ups, ensuring all required statements are received on time.
2. Achieve 100% reconciliation between bank transactions and incoming supporting documents by implementing robust matching protocols and validation checks.
3. Automate bank feeds for all supported banks, reducing manual entry by 90% and increasing data accuracy and timeliness.
4. Attain at least 99% reliability in optical character recognition (OCR) for receipts and bank statements, streamlining data capture and minimizing manual intervention.
5. Drive a 50+ eNPS for Sleek's accounting tools (SleekBooks and Coding Engine) by enhancing user experience, providing seamless workflows, and offering comprehensive support.

To do this, you will have a minimum of 8 years experience as Fullstack Software Engineer or Software Architect and you will most likely be located in Singapore. The preferred technology skills include React, NodeJS, AWS, GitHub/BitBucket and Kubernetes.

Behavioural fit is also important at Sleek, and we will be looking for candidates that have a proven track record of embodying the below attributes in their recent roles:

Ownership: This shows reliability and helps build trust within the team. We move fast and need to know that everyone will see things through to completion and proactively help to get things back on track when challenges arise. Accountability is really important to us.

Humility: There is so much we don't know. Humility allows for open-mindedness to feedback and a willingness to learn from others. It paves the way for collaboration and creates a positive work environment. It is a key ingredient of self awareness and emotional intelligence.

Structured Thinking: Our business is complex with many layers (many services, many countries, many cultures). Regardless of whether you're more analytical or creative in nature, being able to show sound judgement is important to us. It ensures solutions are pragmatic and balance the needs of the organisation, team and customers.

Data driven: We are a data rich business with ~15,000 small customers. Each decision we make can impact many more people than we realise - so it's critical that we use sound data to support our strategies and review the success of our initiatives.

Can have tough conversations in a positive way: It's not a matter of if, but when difficult interpersonal situations arise. Disagreement, conflict and disappointment are a given in a fast moving business where people care about their work. People that proactively have tough conversations with kindness build empathy, trust and great working relationships.

Problem Solving: You'll need to be able to think on your feet as this role requires you to identify, diagnose, and resolve production issues quickly, reducing downtime. You will leverage your strong infrastructure and development skills in post-incident reviews to find the underlying cause of failures and prevent future incidents.

User-centric: You understand the importance of system reliability and performance for both internal and external users and make sure users are heard before suggesting solutions. Our business relies on our platform availability and you need to be cognizant of your actions as it comes with great responsibility.

About the interview process

The successful candidate will participate in the below interview stages.

It might seem like a lot - but fear not - we come prepared We anticipate the process to last no more than 3 weeks from start to finish depending on your availability.

Whether the interviews are held over video call or in person will depend on your location and the role.

Introductory call

• A ~30 minute video call with a member of our HR team to discuss your application and get a better understanding of your experience and expectations for the role

Project or case study or technical test

• If it's a project, you'll have 1 week to complete a short assignment related to what you'll actually be required to do in your first month on the job. You'll then present some slides/ designs/ a doc/ an excel model/ some code to a few members of the team, followed by Q&A
• If it's a case study, there's nothing to prepare. You'll have a ~45-60 minute chat with the Hiring Manager, where he or she will give you some real-life challenges that this role faces, and will ask for your approach to solving them
• If it's a technical test, it is usually a 30-50 minute online assessment that will be conducted in real-time, while a member of staff is dialled into the call

Career deep dive

• A ~60 minute chat with the Hiring Manager
• We'll discuss your last couple of roles to understand your experience in more detail
• In addition, we'll be trying to gauge your where your strengths lie

Behavioural fit assessment

• A ~60 minute chat, usually with a member of HR or the leadership team
• We'll dive into some recent work situations to understand how you think and work

Reference interviews

• We'll have 2-3 short phone or video calls with references that you provide to us
• So as to not delay your offer, we may ask your permission to have these calls earlier on in the interview process

Requirement for background screening

Please be aware that Sleek is a regulated entity and as such is required to perform different levels of background checks on staff depending on their role.

This may include using external vendors to verify the below:

• Your education
• Any criminal history
• Any political exposure
• Any bankruptcy or adverse credit history

We will ask for your consent before conducting these checks. Depending on your role at Sleek, an adverse result on one of these checks may prohibit you from passing probation.

Tell employers what skills you have

Architect
Software Engineering
Automation Tools
Problem Solving
Reliability
SQL
Accounting
Emotional Intelligence
Accountability
Bookkeeping
ENPS
Humility
Github
Software Development
C++

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