--- title: 'Tech & AI jobs in South Africa' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/location/south-africa' type: 'location' --- # Tech & AI jobs in South Africa > South Africa is the continent's largest and most mature tech market, centered on Johannesburg and Cape Town, with strengths in fintech and a growing developer-export scene. Naspers, one of the world's biggest tech investors, is based here. The roles skew fintech, e-commerce, and increasingly remote work for global companies. - **Open roles:** 374 - **Hiring companies:** 73 - **Region type:** country - **Timezone:** Africa/Johannesburg - **Population:** 60,400,000 - **Cost of living:** well below the US average, the continent's largest tech and fintech hub. - **Climate:** Mostly warm and temperate, with sunny days year-round. Seasons run opposite the northern hemisphere. - **Page:** https://feeny.ai/location/south-africa ## Cities in South Africa - [Cape Town](https://feeny.ai/location/south-africa/cape-town) — 183 jobs - [Johannesburg](https://feeny.ai/location/south-africa/johannesburg) — 67 jobs ## Top companies hiring in South Africa - [takealot.com](https://feeny.ai/companies/takealot-com) — 54 open roles - [Takealot Group](https://feeny.ai/companies/takealot-group) — 21 open roles - [M-KOPA](https://feeny.ai/companies/m-kopa) — 39 open roles - [Ozow](https://feeny.ai/companies/ozow) — 10 open roles - [Ogilvy Social.Lab South Africa](https://feeny.ai/companies/ogilvy-social-lab-south-africa) — 9 open roles - [Impact.com](https://feeny.ai/companies/impact-com) — 27 open roles - [DigiCert](https://feeny.ai/companies/digicert) — 13 open roles - [Brandtech+ ](https://feeny.ai/companies/brandtech) — 14 open roles - [The Global Talent Co.](https://feeny.ai/companies/the-global-talent-co) — 13 open roles - [VML](https://feeny.ai/companies/vml) — 8 open roles - [Speechify](https://feeny.ai/companies/speechify) — 13 open roles - [WPP Media](https://feeny.ai/companies/wpp-media) — 9 open roles ## Top Universities **Where South Africa's tech talent studies** The University of Cape Town (where Elon Musk briefly studied) and the University of the Witwatersrand (where Nelson Mandela studied law) anchor the country's talent, with Stellenbosch adding a strong engineering and business pipeline. - **University of Cape Town** (Cape Town · 18,000 undergrads) — notable alumni: Elon Musk, J. M. Coetzee, Allan Gray - **University of the Witwatersrand** (Johannesburg · 20,000 undergrads) — notable alumni: Nelson Mandela, Adrian Gore - **Stellenbosch University** (Stellenbosch · 22,000 undergrads) — notable alumni: Jan Smuts - **University of Pretoria** (Pretoria · 39,000 undergrads) - **University of Johannesburg** (Johannesburg · 50,000 undergrads) ## Top Unicorns **Unicorn startups in South Africa** South Africa's independent private unicorn bench is thin, led by TymeBank, a digital bank that scaled across South Africa and into Southeast Asia. Much of the country's tech weight sits inside Naspers and its global investments rather than in standalone startups. - **TymeBank** — $1.5B · Digital-only retail bank in South Africa & Southeast Asia ## FAQ **Tech jobs in South Africa: common questions** ### How many tech jobs are open in South Africa right now? Feeny lists about 374 active tech roles in South Africa across 73 companies. These are live listings we keep refreshed, not a stale snapshot. Johannesburg and Cape Town carry most of the volume between them. Note that a growing share of South African tech work is remote for foreign firms, so local office listings are only part of the picture. ### Which cities in South Africa have the most tech jobs? Johannesburg and Cape Town are the two centers among the 2 cities we track, and they split the country's tech hiring. Johannesburg leans toward finance and corporate tech, while Cape Town has built a stronger startup and product reputation. Together they account for nearly all of the domestic openings. Outside those two, the market thins considerably. ### What companies are hiring for tech roles in South Africa? South Africa is home to Naspers, one of the biggest tech investors in the world, which gives the country an outsized place in global tech despite its size. Around that sits a strong fintech scene and a growing base of e-commerce companies. On top of the local employers, a large and rising share of South African developers now work remotely for US and European firms. Fintech and e-commerce are where the domestic hiring concentrates. ### What kinds of tech roles are common in South Africa? Fintech is the strongest domestic category, built on a mature financial-services sector. E-commerce is the other major source of roles. Increasingly, though, the defining pattern is remote engineering work for foreign companies, which pulls a lot of the country's best developers. Backend and full-stack skills carry across all three lanes. ### What is it like to work in tech in South Africa? South Africa has the continent's largest and most mature tech market, centered on Johannesburg and Cape Town, with deep fintech roots and a genuinely strong developer base. Cost of living is low relative to Western markets, which is exactly why the developer-export trend took hold. The honest trade is that local salaries are modest, and much of the top talent now works remotely for foreign firms at better pay. For skilled engineers, that remote route is often the more lucrative path. ### Can international candidates get a work visa to work in tech in South Africa? A Critical Skills work visa exists for in-demand roles, including several tech specialties, which gives a real relocation route on paper. In practice, though, the market increasingly runs the other way: South African developers are hired remotely by US and European companies rather than foreigners moving in. That makes it as much a remote-export market as a relocation destination. The honest answer is that the strongest flow is South African talent working abroad without leaving home. --- _Source: https://feeny.ai/location/south-africa_