Head of Engineering

STYLI; United Arab Emirates; On-site; AED 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading e-commerce brand in the UAE seeks a Senior Engineering Manager to oversee engineering strategy for their marketplace platform. This pivotal role involves driving innovation, ensuring operational excellence, and leading a diverse engineering team to support rapid business growth.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience in software engineering, with 5+ years in senior leadership roles.
• Proven experience in building and scaling complex systems in eCommerce.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the overarching engineering vision.
• Lead and mentor a team of engineering managers and principal engineers.
• Oversee the planning, execution, and delivery of complex software projects.

Skills

Leadership

Collaboration

Communication

Innovation

Job description

Head of Engineering

Location: Dubai

About STYLI

STYLI is an e-commerce brand founded in 2019 by Landmark Group, emerging as one of the largest fashion and beauty platforms in the GCC and India. With a strong focus on trendy, affordable fashion and beauty products, STYLI offers over 40,000 styles to men, women, kids, and beauty enthusiasts, delivering the latest global trends directly to their doors.

Our vision is to be the most aspirational value fast fashion and lifestyle destination, delivering seamless service excellence. We aim to create personalized experiences, engaging customers across all touchpoints, and continually expanding our curated selection to meet their evolving needs. STYLI has quickly become a leading player in the e-commerce fashion space across the GCC—Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait—and in India.

Role Overview:

We are seeking an accomplished and visionary Senior Engineering Manager (SEM) to oversee the end-to-end engineering strategy and execution for our marketplace eCommerce platform. This role includes leadership across multiple domains, such as Customer Experience, Martech, Fulfillment & Logistics, Marketplace Systems, and Platform Engineering—including DevOps, Reliability, Security & Compliance, Data Platform, Observability & Scalability, and Testing Automation.

As an SEM, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the technical landscape of the organization, driving innovation, scalability, and operational excellence to support rapid business growth.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership:

• Define and execute the overarching engineering vision, ensuring alignment with business objectives.
• Drive innovation in product and platform engineering to deliver solutions across all business domains.
• Partner with the executive team to identify growth opportunities, mitigate risks, and set long-term technical strategies.
• Foster a culture of excellence, innovation, and ownership across the engineering organization.

Domain Leadership:

• Customer Experience & Martech: Ensure seamless, personalized, and engaging customer journeys across discovery, search, checkout, and post-order experiences. Drive Martech innovations including loyalty programs, gamification, personalization, performance marketing, and influencer/CRM applications.
• Fulfillment & Logistics: Build scalable and efficient systems for order management, WMS/3PL integrations, returns, refunds, and cross-border logistics. Optimize delivery and fulfillment pipelines to enhance operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
• Marketplace Systems: Develop robust platforms for seller onboarding, inventory and pricing management, business operations, and third-party integrations. Enable cross-border trading with features such as multi-currency support, customs compliance, and international payment systems.
• Platform Engineering: Build and maintain the foundational systems and tools that ensure scalability, reliability, and efficiency across all engineering domains.
• DevOps & Reliability: Lead the adoption of modern DevOps practices, ensure high system availability, and minimize downtime.
• Security & Compliance: Implement secure development practices, compliance frameworks (e.g., GDPR, PCI DSS), and incident response protocols. Oversee threat detection, incident response, and recovery protocols to minimize security risks. Conduct regular risk assessments, penetration testing, and vulnerability scans to identify and mitigate risks.
• Data Platform: Architect and maintain scalable data infrastructure, enabling advanced analytics, machine learning, and real-time decision-making.
• Observability & Scalability: Build monitoring systems to ensure performance and scalability of the platform under high-load conditions.
• Testing Automation: Establish robust automated testing frameworks to ensure quality at scale.

Team Leadership:

• Team Management: Lead and mentor a team of engineering managers, principal engineers, and solution engineers.
• Promote a collaborative and inclusive culture, empowering teams to innovate and excel.
• Set clear objectives and key results (OKRs) for engineering teams to track progress and impact. Be accountable for overall engineering efficiency and delivery rate across squads.
• Partner with HR to attract, retain, and develop top engineering talent.
• Organize hackathons for the team to showcase innovation and foster collaboration.

Project, Process & Collaboration:

• Partner with product, design, and operations teams to build a multi-year roadmap and deliver it.
• Oversee the planning, execution, and delivery of complex software projects.
• Act as a key technical advisor to executive leadership, providing insights and recommendations on technology trends and strategies.
• Collaborate with operations, finance, and other business units to align technology investments with company growth strategies.
• Provide regular updates to executive stakeholders on project milestones, risks, and roadmaps.
• Identify and implement processes that improve team efficiency, product quality, and time-to-market.
• Advocate for best practices in software development, including Agile methodologies.
• Manage engineering budgets, including headcount and infrastructure costs.
• Ensure efficient use of resources to meet engineering and business goals.

Qualifications:

Technical Expertise:

• 15+ years of experience in software engineering, with 5+ years in senior leadership roles.
• Proven experience in building and scaling complex systems in eCommerce, logistics, or platform-based businesses.
• Deep understanding of architecture for cloud-based, distributed systems, microservices, and APIs.
• Strong expertise in DevOps practices, CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, and platform reliability.
• Familiarity with compliance standards (e.g., GDPR, PDPL, PCI DSS) and security best practices.
• Knowledge of data platforms, analytics, machine learning, and observability tools.

Leadership and Collaboration:

• Demonstrated ability to lead large, distributed engineering organizations across multiple domains.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to align technical strategies with business goals.
• Experience in managing budgets, vendor relationships, and external partners.