Senior Engineering Manager — Lead 4 squads & shape the tech roadmap

talabat; Dubai; On-site; AED 550,000 - 900,000; Full time

Job summary

talabat is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager to lead multiple engineering squads within a single domain in the MENA region. You will define the 12-18 month technical vision, hire and grow leaders, drive delivery excellence, and partner with product, design and business to scale systems.

You'll codify non-functional requirements, mentor managers, and advance domain initiatives across cross-functional teams while maintaining talabat's standards for scalability, security, and speed.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of hands-on technical leadership experience managing engineering teams.
• Demonstrated ability to hire, mentor, and grow engineers — track record of developing people, not just technical skills.
• Comfort with cross-functional leadership: working with product, design, business partners, and other engineering teams.
• Emotional intelligence: you navigate ambiguity, handle conflict constructively, and create psychological safety for your teams.
• 8+ years of hands-on software engineering experience in production systems.
• Deep understanding of at least one of: distributed systems, backend systems, data platforms, mobile platforms, or web-scale infrastructure.
• Proven ability to work across diverse technology stacks — architecture decisions that matter.
• Hands-on understanding of XP practices: TDD, pair programming, continuous refactoring, trunk-based development.
• Think about non-functional requirements: scalability, reliability, latency, cost efficiency, and security.
• Navigate tradeoffs between speed and technical debt; know when to optimize or simplify.
• Led or participated in domain-level decisions (tech stack migrations, architectural changes, platform initiatives).

Responsibilities

• Define a 12-18 month technical vision for the domain.
• Lead multiple engineering squads (approx. 20 engineers) and manage team health and growth.
• Translate product objectives into technical solutions and quantify impact.
• Guide teams through discovery, planning, and execution with small-batch delivery.
• Collaborate with product, design, and business partners to resolve ambiguity and drive alignment.
• Make architectural decisions that balance scalability, security, and performance.

Skills

technical leadership

people management

cross-functional leadership

emotional intelligence

software engineering

domain knowledge

multitech experience

XP practices

non-functional requirements

technical debt tradeoffs

domain decisions

Tools

AWS

GCP

Azure

Job description

talabat is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager to lead multiple engineering squads within a single domain in the MENA region. You will define the 12-18 month technical vision, hire and grow leaders, drive delivery excellence, and partner with product, design and business to scale systems.

You'll codify non-functional requirements, mentor managers, and advance domain initiatives across cross-functional teams while maintaining talabat's standards for scalability, security, and speed.