Lead Engineer - Storage & Data

SmartChoice International GCC; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 400,000 - 700,000; Full time

Job summary

SmartChoice International GCC is seeking an experienced Storage & Data Protection Engineer to lead the design, implementation and optimization of large-scale storage across cloud and high-performance environments.

You will act as a senior technical reference for storage, backup and data protection, collaborating with architecture, platform engineering, security and operations to ensure performance, availability and security of critical platforms.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology or a related discipline.
• 7+ years of hands‑on experience designing, implementing and managing enterprise storage and data protection environments.
• 2+ years of experience leading or mentoring infrastructure engineers, with responsibility for technical quality and delivery.
• Strong hands‑on experience with software‑defined storage across block, file and object storage.
• Experience working with enterprise storage platforms and modern distributed storage technologies.
• Strong understanding of storage protocols and interfaces, including NFS, S3, iSCSI and NVMe‑based technologies.
• Strong Linux administration skills, including experience troubleshooting complex storage and infrastructure issues.

Responsibilities

• Lead the implementation, management and lifecycle of large-scale block, file and object storage platforms across cloud and infrastructure environments.
• Work closely with architecture and platform engineering teams on technology evaluation, solution design and integration.
• Support the delivery of storage roadmaps, technical standards and ongoing platform improvements.
• Lead capacity planning to ensure storage environments can support current and future business requirements.
• Identify potential failure points and implement improvements to availability, reliability and operational resilience.
• Analyse storage performance and implement optimisation strategies covering throughput, latency, efficiency and resource utilisation.
• Evaluate and implement modern software‑defined, distributed and clustered storage technologies.
• Design and implement data protection and disaster recovery solutions, ensuring data integrity, availability and recoverability.
• Develop and improve storage monitoring, observability, logging and alerting capabilities.
• Provide Level 3 technical support, including complex troubleshooting, root cause analysis, incident resolution and escalation management.
• Work with technology vendors on complex technical issues and support cases where required.
• Lead, mentor and support storage engineers, ensuring strong technical standards and knowledge sharing.
• Work closely with security teams to ensure storage and backup platforms are appropriately secured, hardened and compliant.
• Create and maintain technical documentation, implementation guides, operational procedures, architecture diagrams and knowledge articles.
• Work with operations and service teams to improve support processes, workflows and overall service quality.

Skills

Python

Bash

Go

Troubleshooting

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science/Engineering/IT

Tools

OpenStack

Kubernetes

OpenShift

Job description

Our client is a high-growth technology powerhouse operating at the forefront of AI, cloud and digital infrastructure. With an ambitious vision for the future of technology, the organization is bringing together world‑class engineering talent, advanced infrastructure and next‑generation platforms to solve some of the most complex technology challenges at scale.

This is an opportunity to join an environment where deep engineering, ambitious technology and genuine innovation come together, with the chance to influence the architecture of critical platforms and help shape what comes next.

The Opportunity

We are looking for an experienced Storage & Data Protection Engineer to take a leading technical role in the implementation, optimisation and support of large-scale storage infrastructure across cloud and high‑performance environments.

You will act as a senior technical point of reference for storage, backup and data protection services, working closely with architecture, platform engineering, security and operations teams. The role combines hands‑on engineering, technical leadership and advanced troubleshooting, with responsibility for ensuring storage platforms deliver high levels of performance, availability, scalability and security.

This is an opportunity for an engineer who enjoys working with complex infrastructure, solving challenging technical problems and helping shape how critical platforms are delivered and operated.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the implementation, management and lifecycle of large-scale block, file and object storage platforms across cloud and infrastructure environments.
• Work closely with architecture and platform engineering teams on technology evaluation, solution design and integration.
• Support the delivery of storage roadmaps, technical standards and ongoing platform improvements.
• Lead capacity planning to ensure storage environments can support current and future business requirements.
• Identify potential failure points and implement improvements to availability, reliability and operational resilience.
• Analyse storage performance and implement optimisation strategies covering throughput, latency, efficiency and resource utilisation.
• Evaluate and implement modern software‑defined, distributed and clustered storage technologies.
• Design and implement data protection and disaster recovery solutions, ensuring data integrity, availability and recoverability.
• Develop and improve storage monitoring, observability, logging and alerting capabilities.
• Provide Level 3 technical support, including complex troubleshooting, root cause analysis, incident resolution and escalation management.
• Work with technology vendors on complex technical issues and support cases where required.
• Lead, mentor and support storage engineers, ensuring strong technical standards and knowledge sharing.
• Work closely with security teams to ensure storage and backup platforms are appropriately secured, hardened and compliant.
• Create and maintain technical documentation, implementation guides, operational procedures, architecture diagrams and knowledge articles.
• Work with operations and service teams to improve support processes, workflows and overall service quality.

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology or a related discipline.
• 7+ years of hands‑on experience designing, implementing and managing enterprise storage and data protection environments.
• 2+ years of experience leading or mentoring infrastructure engineers, with responsibility for technical quality and delivery.
• Strong hands‑on experience with software‑defined storage across block, file and object storage.
• Experience working with enterprise storage platforms and modern distributed storage technologies.
• Strong understanding of storage protocols and interfaces, including NFS, S3, iSCSI and NVMe‑based technologies.
• Strong Linux administration skills, including experience troubleshooting complex storage and infrastructure issues.
• Experience with object storage and distributed storage platforms is highly desirable.
• Experience with OpenStack or comparable cloud infrastructure environments, particularly in relation to backup and disaster recovery, is highly desirable.
• Experience with clustered or parallel file systems is advantageous.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes, OpenShift or similar container platforms, including an understanding of container storage concepts, is desirable.
• Experience working with enterprise identity, access management and authentication technologies is advantageous.
• Strong knowledge of backup, disaster recovery, data protection, RPO/RTO and recovery validation.
• Understanding of high‑availability architectures and technologies used to support resilient storage services.
• Strong understanding of encryption, hardening, security controls and infrastructure compliance.
• Solid understanding of data centre networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, routing, switching, firewalls and virtual networking.
• Experience with modern monitoring and observability platforms, including metrics, dashboards, logging and alerting.
• Understanding of CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code and software‑defined infrastructure practices.
• Strong scripting or programming skills using Python, Bash, Go or similar languages.
• Excellent troubleshooting, analytical, communication and stakeholder management skills.

You'll be a technically strong infrastructure engineer who is comfortable getting into the detail when things go wrong, while also being able to step back and look at the wider platform.

You should be confident leading technical discussions, mentoring engineers, working with vendors and collaborating with architects and adjacent infrastructure teams.

Experience in cloud, HPC, AI infrastructure or other technically demanding environments would be particularly valuable.