Senior Software Engineering Manager

talabat; Dubai; On-site; AED 331,000 - 514,000; Full time

Job summary

talabat is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager to lead multiple squads (typically 4 squads, ~20 engineers) within a single domain. You will set domain-level technical strategy, champion engineering excellence, and partner with product, design, and business to deliver scalable, secure systems.

You will hire and grow engineers, mentor managers, foster psychological safety, and drive measurable delivery outcomes across the domain while aligning with talabat's XP practices and standards.

Qualifications

• 4+ years hands-on technical leadership in engineering teams
• 8+ years hands-on software engineering in production systems
• Proven ability to hire, mentor and grow engineers
• Comfort with cross-functional leadership across product, design, and business
• Emotional intelligence to navigate ambiguity and build psychological safety
• Experience with multiple stacks and architecture decisions that matter
• Hands-on XP practices: TDD, pair programming, refactoring, trunk-based development
• Focus on non-functional requirements: scalability, reliability, latency, cost, security
• Experience leading domain-level decisions (tech stack migrations, architectural changes)
• Experience leading multiple teams or a domain in high-growth environments

Responsibilities

• Domain-level technical strategy aligned with product leadership
• Build and maintain team health, hiring, mentoring, and psychological safety
• Guide delivery with discovery, planning, and small-batch execution
• Translate product objectives into scalable technical solutions
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, design, and business partners
• Make technical decisions on system architecture, security, and performance

Skills

Technical leadership

Hiring & mentoring

Cross-functional leadership

Emotional intelligence

Distributed systems

Architecture decisions

XP practices

Non-functional requirements

Domain decisions

Domain-level strategy

Job description

Job Description

talabat is the leading on-demand food and non-food delivery platform in MENA, operating across 8 countries and processing hundreds of millions of orders annually.

We're part of Delivery Hero, the global leader in online food delivery and q-commerce, and we're engineering-first. Our teams operate under eXtreme Programming (XP) principles — TDD, pair programming, continuous refactoring, and trunk-based development. We believe quality enables speed, and our hiring reflects that. Our engineering culture is a key competitive advantage, and we're looking for leaders who embody it.

What you'll own

As Senior Engineering Manager, you'll lead multiple engineering teams (typically 4 squads, ~20 engineers) across a single technical domain. You're accountable for:

• Domain-level technical strategy — Work with product leadership and your teams to define a 12-18 month technical vision for your domain
• Team health and growth — Build an environment where engineers thrive: hiring, developing ICs, mentoring junior managers, and creating psychological safety
• Delivery excellence — Guide your teams through discovery, planning, and execution using small-batch delivery and continuous feedback loops
• Business impact — Translate product objectives into technical solutions; quantify and communicate the impact of your domain's work
• Cross-functional leadership — Work closely with product, design, and business partners to resolve ambiguity and drive alignment
• Technical decision-making — Guide your teams on system design, architecture, and engineering practices while maintaining talabat's standards for scalability, security, and performance

90-day, 6-month, and 12-month outcomes

90 days: You've onboarded your teams, understood their technical roadmap and pain points, and delivered your first feedback to your manager on domain health and near-term priorities.

6 months: Your teams are shipping value consistently; you've identified one emerging technical leader and started mentoring them; you've coached your teams through at least one cross-domain initiative; code quality and shipping velocity are on track or improving.

12 months: Your domain has a clear technical vision communicated across the org; you've grown at least one engineer significantly (either toward IC4/Staff or toward management); your teams ship with confidence; you're contributing to 1–2 strategic initiatives beyond your domain; you're mentoring or developing a potential future manager.

Qualifications

What you'll bring

• 4+ years of hands-on technical leadership experience managing engineering teams
• Demonstrated ability to hire, mentor, and grow engineers — we care about your 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 — we care that you've made architecture decisions that matter, not that you've used every specific tool
• Hands-on understanding of XP practices: TDD, pair programming, continuous refactoring, and trunk-based development (or strong willingness to learn and lead talabat's approach)
• You think about non-functional requirements: scalability, reliability, latency, cost efficiency, and security — not just feature delivery
• You've navigated the tradeoffs between speed and technical debt; you know when to optimize and when to simplify
• You've led or been part of domain-level decisions (tech stack migrations, architectural changes, platform initiatives)

Nice-to-haves

• Experience leading multiple teams or a domain in a high-growth environment
• Exposure to eXtreme Programming practices (XP culture is learnable but experience is valuable)
• Background in marketplace, delivery, or logistics optimization
• Experience mentoring or developing other engineering managers
• Familiarity with modern cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)

Additional information

Why this role, why talabat

• Scale with purpose: You'll impact millions of daily orders across MENA while building a technical foundation that's proven to scale
• Engineering culture that works: We practice XP genuinely — TDD, pair programming, continuous delivery — not as Agile theater. Our engineers ship faster because we focus on quality
• Autonomous teams: Your teams own their roadmap and their quality. You're not a bottleneck; you're an enabler
• Mentoring and growth: If you want to grow into a Director role, we have a clear path: multi-domain scope to tribe leadership to org strategy
• Real problems: Food delivery in MENA is complex. You'll solve problems that matter: serving millions, operating across 8 countries, balancing fast delivery with sustainability