Sr. Engineering Manager

Delivery Hero SE; Dubai; On-site; AED 360,000 - 480,000; Full time

Job summary

Delivery Hero SE is looking for a Senior Engineering Manager in Dubai. In this role, you will lead multiple engineering teams, developing the technical strategy and ensuring delivery excellence. You will mentor engineers, fostering growth and psychological safety within your teams.

The ideal candidate has extensive experience in technical leadership and software engineering. Key responsibilities include shaping the technical vision, navigating trade-offs between speed and quality, and guiding cross-functional teams to success.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of technical leadership experience managing engineering teams.
• 8+ years of hands-on software engineering experience in production systems.
• Experience in hiring, mentoring, and growing engineers.

Responsibilities

• Lead multiple engineering teams and develop domain-level technical strategy.
• Guide teams through planning and execution, ensuring delivery excellence.
• Mentor engineers and facilitate their growth in a supportive environment.

Skills

Technical leadership

Cross-functional leadership

Emotional intelligence

Software engineering

Non-functional requirements thinking

Tools

AWS

GCP

Azure

Job description

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

Leadership & people management

• 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

Technical depth

• 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)

Engineering sense

• 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)