Technical Lead — Telecom Software Engineering, Integration & Application Reliability

About the Company

Afghan Wireless is Afghanistan’s first wireless communications company. When we began operations in 2002, we founded Afghanistan’s mobile communications industry by being the first enterprise to offer cell phone service to Afghan consumers and businesses. For well over a decade, Afghan Wireless has driven the rapid growth of our nation’s communications market through its innovative development and deployment of global-class High-Definition (HD) Voice Communications, Internet, Data, and Mobile Payments Services. More than 6,000 people work for Afghan Wireless, and our Company is directly responsible for the creation of 100,000 jobs throughout Afghanistan.

Job Summary

Key responsibilities

• Lead the transition and ongoing operation of business-critical telecom applications.
• Lead software design and engineering delivery; review architecture, source code, dependencies, tests, deployment procedures, and operational readiness.
• Troubleshoot complex signaling and integration issues involving SS7/SIGTRAN, CAMEL/MAP, SIP and SMPP.
• Lead production incidents, root-cause investigations and permanent corrective actions.
• Plan and validate deployments, failover, disaster recovery, and rollback procedures.
• Establish change controls, support escalation, technical documentation, and engineering standards.
• Train internal engineers and ensure backup coverage for critical systems.

Application responsibilities and delivery

• Allocate technical ownership and deputies across CAMELOCK, GMLC, VLRInsert/VLRDump, PromoSMS, SMS152, Cedar, NUMAN, WEBCC, WFM and CCSM/CARE. Maintain a service and dependency map covering application code, signaling, databases, hosting and external interfaces.
• Lead hands-on software design and code reviews. Develop and debug services, APIs, middleware and adapters; guide testing and controlled releases. Verify code quality, security, performance, dependencies, rollback, access and source rights.
• Preserve working services during handover. Plan current-system takeover and knowledge transfer alongside separately controlled upgrades; define reconciliation, rollback and business acceptance before migration.
• Coordinate engineering priorities and capacity with Director IT/IP/RAFM and the responsible team managers. Set realistic recovery and support arrangements, review material security risks, and escalate unresolved dependencies.

Cross-team integration and support

• Work closely with PS Core, Signaling/SPS, IN, HLR/HSS, Billing, OSS/BSS, IT Development, DWH & Mediation, BI, VAS, Network Information Security, IP/MPLS and IT System Administration Team (SAT) to agree interfaces, dependencies, support ownership, test evidence and coordinated changes.
• Respect each team’s authority for its systems and obtain its support for integration, incident resolution and recovery.
• Lead cross-team architecture and service-flow reviews: PS Core for packet-service dependencies; Signaling/SPS for signaling transport and routing; IN and HLR/HSS for charging, subscriber and provisioning interfaces; VAS for service and messaging flows; IT Development for middleware and APIs; DWH & Mediation and BI for data and report reconciliation.
• Agree security and access controls with Network Information Security, routing/connectivity with IP/MPLS, and assigned operational dependencies with IT System Administration Team (SAT).
• Coordinate joint incident analysis, change windows, rollback, and recovery ownership.
• Agree on Billing and OSS/BSS interfaces for charging, billing records, product/service orders, provisioning status and operational alarms; define end-to-end ownership, reconciliation and joint acceptance.

Key outcomes

• A complete service ownership and dependency map for all ten applications.
• Controlled technical handover with practical competency checks and documented recovery plans.
• Engineering priorities, release decisions and incident actions supported by evidence.

Engineering controls and service ownership

• Maintain hands-on capability to implement, review, debug and test Python, Java, Go and JavaScript/TypeScript services as used in the estate. Review middleware/adapters, API contracts, authentication, retries, idempotency, observability and applicable TM Forum Open API integration with the responsible engineers.
• Maintain Git repository and history custody, build/runtime dependency records, reproducible builds, automated tests, and CI/CD. Use Linux, Docker, Ansible, and Temporal where deployed; verify secrets, service monitoring, tested restore and rollback, including Cedar’s ClickHouse-dependent ingestion and reporting.

Working arrangements and performance

• Protect live services and data through approved access, tested changes, verified rollback and authorised production deployment or maintenance. Escalate unavailable access, unsupported dependencies and material risks; retain evidence of change and recovery outcomes.
• Own assigned deliverables, usable documentation and trained backup cover. Agree priorities, capacity, escalation, planned maintenance and an on-call rota with the reporting manager; no individual is expected to provide continuous coverage alone.
• Agree priorities through the reporting line. Track delivery quality, repeat incidents, change failures, tested recovery, documentation, and backup readiness. Infrastructure ownership remains with the assigned infrastructure team; coordination does not transfer reporting authority.

Bachelor’s degree in Telecom Engineering, Software Engineering, Computer Science, IT, or a relevant field.

Minimum 8 years of experience in telecom engineering and integration, including 3 years in technical leadership, with demonstrated hands-on software engineering delivery.

Fluent in one of the local languages (Dari, Pashto) and English (written and spoken).

Proven responsibility for live telecom systems supporting subscriber services, provisioning, messaging, or location services.

Hands-on expertise in Linux, IP networking, signaling trace analysis, and telecom integration.

Experience with high-availability systems and production changes requiring minimal service interruption.

Hands-on ability to design, implement, review, and debug application code and troubleshoot across software, network, and database layers.

Strong leadership, vendor-management, and technical communication skills.

Knowledge of Restcomm jSS7/GMLC/CAMEL gateways, Go, FreeSWITCH, and transitions from vendor-managed to internal operations is preferred.

Demonstrated hands-on software engineering delivery and senior telecom judgement are essential. Review and modify service code, diagnose a code-level fault, add tests, and explain secure design, performance, and release trade-offs in the languages used by the deployed systems. Software development is a core responsibility of this role.

Proven personal delivery of production systems, code or configuration changes and incident resolution, supported by clear technical documentation and accountable ownership of outcomes.

Interested candidates should fill out and submit the APPLICATION FORM with complete and correct information. To have access the APPLICATION FORM, please copy and paste the link into your Web Browser.

https://forms.gle/C96mRipswcjoxZcN8