Sr. Engineering Manager

Showcify, Inc.; Dubai; On-site; AED 520,000 - 760,000; Full time

Job summary

talabat is the leading on-demand delivery platform in MENA, and this Senior Engineering Manager role leads multiple engineering teams within a single domain, accountable for technical strategy, delivery excellence, and cross-functional alignment with product, design and business partners.

You will drive domain-level technical vision for 12–18 months, mentor engineers and managers, improve code quality and velocity, and ensure scalable, secure, and reliable platforms across the region while

Qualifications

• 4+ years leading engineering teams.
• Experience hiring, mentoring, and growing engineers.
• Comfort with cross-functional leadership across product, design, business partners.
• Excellent emotional intelligence and psychological safety focus.

Responsibilities

• Define domain-level technical strategy for 12–18 months.
• Maintain team health, hiring, mentoring, and growth.
• Guide delivery through discovery, planning, and execution with small-batch delivery and feedback loops.
• Translate product objectives into technical solutions and quantify impact.
• Collaborate with product, design, and business to resolve ambiguity and drive alignment.
• Guide architecture decisions focusing on scalability, security, and performance.

Skills

People management

Cross-functional leadership

Emotional intelligence

Engineering leadership

Tools

Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure)

Job description

About the opportunity

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.

What you need to be successful

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)

Who we are

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's in it for you

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 fasterbecause 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 tribe leadership org strategy
• Real problems:Food delivery in MENA is complex. You'll solve problems that matter: serving millions, operating across 8countries, balancing fast delivery with sustainability