Lead ML Engineer: Production AI & MLOps Leader

DISCOVERED; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 420,000 - 780,000; Full time

Job summary

DISCOVERED is building an AI Centre of Excellence in Abu Dhabi and seeks a Lead Machine Learning Engineer to head ML Engineering and MLOps teams. The role will drive production-grade AI, from models to agents, with a focus on governance and scalable platforms.

You will collaborate across Data Science, Platform, Engineering and Security to deploy reliable AI at enterprise scale, shaping the AI platform roadmap and setting standards for testing, release and monitoring.

Qualifications

• 8-12 years' experience across software engineering, ML engineering or MLOps, incl. 3+ years in technical leadership or management.
• Proven experience taking AI/ML systems from prototype through to large-scale production.
• Strong understanding of ML alongside scalable systems and platform architecture.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, RAG and agentic frameworks.
• Strong knowledge of production ML, deployment strategies and MLOps.
• Experience building or operating systems within highly regulated or mission-critical environments.
• Strong understanding of security, governance and compliance requirements around production AI.
• Proven experience leading and developing engineering teams.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or related field.
• A Master's degree or PhD in CS/AI/ML or related field would be a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop teams across Machine Learning Engineering and MLOps.
• Move models and AI agents from experimentation into robust production environments.
• Shape AI platform roadmap, engineering standards and testing/release processes.
• Establish governance, explainability, bias, auditability and security controls for production AI.
• Collaborate with Data Science, Platform, Engineering and Security teams to build scalable tooling and infrastructure.

Skills

ML leadership

MLOps

Production ML

LLMs

RAG

Agentic frameworks

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science/Engineering

Master's or PhD in CS/AI/ML (plus)

Job description

DISCOVERED is building an AI Centre of Excellence in Abu Dhabi and seeks a Lead Machine Learning Engineer to head ML Engineering and MLOps teams. The role will drive production-grade AI, from models to agents, with a focus on governance and scalable platforms.

You will collaborate across Data Science, Platform, Engineering and Security to deploy reliable AI at enterprise scale, shaping the AI platform roadmap and setting standards for testing, release and monitoring.