Engineering Operations Lead

AI71; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

AI71 is seeking an Operations Specialist to drive operational excellence across its engineering organisation in Abu Dhabi. You will own workforce planning, budgeting governance, and cross-functional reporting, partnering with Engineering Leadership, Finance, HR, Procurement and Project teams to optimise capacity and resource utilisation.

You will build scalable frameworks, dashboards and SOPs, delivering real-time visibility into headcount, spend and project performance while supporting

Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience in Operations, PMO, Resource Management, Business Operations or Technical Operations.
• Experience supporting Engineering, Technology or Professional Services organisations.
• Demonstrated experience in workforce planning, resource allocation or capacity planning.
• Experience developing executive dashboards, operational reports and analytical models.
• Experience partnering with Finance on budgeting, forecasting and cost management.
• Experience supporting procurement activities, vendor management and commercial documentation.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end engineering resource planning and workforce allocation across multiple projects.
• Maintain resource allocation models and utilisation trackers to provide accurate staffing visibility.
• Partner with Engineering leadership to identify staffing gaps, hiring priorities and resource constraints.
• Produce daily, weekly and monthly operational reports covering resource utilisation, allocation and project capacity.
• Develop dashboards and executive reporting that support leadership decision-making.
• Track project budgets, forecasts and operational spend in partnership with Finance.
• Maintain financial trackers covering project expenditure, contractor costs, software licensing, subscriptions and personnel costs.
• Support Finance by allocating workforce costs against project budgets based on utilisation data.
• Build financial forecasts and scenario models for new programmes and contracts.
• Coordinate hiring and procurement activities end-to-end for contractors and external vendors.
• Coordinate hiring of FTEs with the Talent Acquisition team and track status.
• Draft and manage Statements of Work (SOWs), NDAs, contract amendments and supporting procurement documentation.
• Partner with Legal and Procurement to ensure commercial documentation aligns with business requirements.
• Coordinate vendor onboarding activities and manage approved supplier engagement.
• Support operational requests across Engineering including tooling, licensing, subscriptions and project enablement.
• Develop and continuously improve operational processes, documentation and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
• Create scalable operational frameworks, trackers and reporting mechanisms that improve organisational visibility.
• Act as a trusted business partner to Engineering leadership, HR, Finance and Operations teams.
• Identify operational risks and recommend process improvements that increase efficiency and reporting accuracy.

Skills

Operations

PMO

Stakeholder management

Data analysis

Budgeting & forecasting

Procurement support

Vendor management

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Excel (Advanced)

Job description

AI71 is seeking an Operations Specialist to drive operational excellence across its engineering organisation in Abu Dhabi. You will own workforce planning, budgeting governance, and cross-functional reporting, partnering with Engineering Leadership, Finance, HR, Procurement and Project teams to optimise capacity and resource utilisation.

You will build scalable frameworks, dashboards and SOPs, delivering real-time visibility into headcount, spend and project performance while supporting