Vice President – Data Platforms

Aldar; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Aldar is seeking an experienced engineering leader to own and evolve the Group's data platform. You will drive end-to-end data architecture, governance and AI-ready foundations, ensuring reliable ingestion, secure storage, and scalable data services across the group and subsidiaries.

Leadership responsibilities include building and mentoring the Data Platforms team, aligning with executive stakeholders, and advancing Emiratization objectives while maintaining cost discipline and production

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field is required.
• Master's degree is preferable.
• Minimum 10-12+ years in data platform engineering or data architecture leadership.
• Minimum 2+ years of managerial experience.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the Group data platform architecture: ingestion, storage, modeling, processing and serving layers.
• Build AI-ready foundations: pipelines, data products and platform capabilities that support advanced analytics and Artificial Intelligence use cases.
• Own data ingestion from enterprise and subsidiary source systems into the Group data platform, with reliable, monitored pipelines.
• Set engineering standards for data pipelines, data products and platform automation.
• Ensure database management and storage planning support performance and growth.
• Implement platform-level data governance: data principles, cataloguing, lineage, quality monitoring and access controls.
• Safeguard master data alignment and data reliability for downstream consumers.
• Partner with Information Security on data protection controls across the platform.
• Serve Group Digital's Data & AI teams with data and self-service capabilities, with clear interfaces and service commitments.
• Enable governed self-service for business and subsidiary teams, balancing autonomy with control.
• Provide centralized observability of data flows supporting digital products.
• Ensure availability, performance and cost discipline of the data platform in production.
• Establish monitoring, incident management and capacity planning for data services.
• Drive FinOps discipline on data platform and storage spend.
• Build and lead the Data Platforms team, including data platform and database management capabilities.
• Develop data engineering depth and support Emiratization objectives.

Skills

Data leadership

Data architecture

Cloud data stacks

Governance

Stakeholder mgmt

FinOps

MLOps awareness

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

Job description

JOB PURPOSE

Own the data backbone of the Group: the platforms through which data is ingested, stored, modeled, governed and made available for analytics, Artificial Intelligence and operational use across Aldar and its subsidiaries.

Establish end-to-end accountability from data platform engineering to operations, building AI-ready foundations and a self-service model that lets Group Digital and the business consume trusted data at speed, without the data platform becoming a bottleneck.

Serve Group Digital's Data & AI teams with data and self-service capabilities; analytics and data science ownership remains with Group Digital.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Data Platform Strategy & Architecture:

• Define and evolve the Group data platform architecture: ingestion, storage, modeling, processing and serving layers.
• Design for reuse, scalability, security-by-design and cost efficiency across the Group and subsidiaries.
• Build AI-ready foundations: pipelines, data products and platform capabilities that support advanced analytics and Artificial Intelligence use cases.

Data Engineering & Ingestion:

• Own data ingestion from enterprise and subsidiary source systems into the Group data platform, with reliable, monitored pipelines.
• Set engineering standards for data pipelines, data products and platform automation.
• Ensure database management and storage planning support performance and growth.

Platform Data Governance & Quality:

• Implement platform-level data governance: data principles, cataloguing, lineage, quality monitoring and access controls.
• Safeguard master data alignment and data reliability for downstream consumers.
• Partner with Information Security on data protection controls across the platform.

Serving Group Digital & Self-Service:

• Serve Group Digital's Data & AI teams with data and self-service capabilities, with clear interfaces and service commitments.
• Enable governed self-service for business and subsidiary teams, balancing autonomy with control.
• Provide centralized observability of data flows supporting digital products.

Operations & Reliability:

• Ensure availability, performance and cost discipline of the data platform in production.
• Establish monitoring, incident management and capacity planning for data services.
• Drive FinOps discipline on data platform and storage spend.

Leadership & Talent Development:

• Build and lead the Data Platforms team, including data platform and database management capabilities.
• Develop data engineering depth and support Emiratization objectives.

What This Role Is Not:

• Not an analytics or data science role; those capabilities are owned by Group Digital.
• Not a reporting or Business Intelligence delivery function; the role provides the platform others build on.
• Not limited to Aldar corporate; the platform serves the Group and its subsidiaries.
• This role owns the data backbone on which the Group's analytics and Artificial Intelligence ambitions are built.

RELATED YEAR OF EXPERIENCE

Minimum of 10-12+ years in data platform engineering or data architecture leadership within large, complex organizations.

YOE IN MANAGERIAL POSITION

Minimum of 2+ years of managerial experience in a related field.

FIELD OF EXPERIENCE

• Enterprise data platforms at group or multi-entity scale, including cloud data stacks
• Data engineering practices, data governance tooling and self-service enablement
• Building AI-ready data foundations (pipelines, MLOps-adjacent capabilities) is an advantage

TECHNICAL AND INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

• Engineering leader with architectural depth; credible with both engineers and executive stakeholders
• Service mindset toward Group Digital and the business: the platform exists to be consumed
• Rigorous on data reliability, governance and cost discipline
• Comfortable operating at the boundary between technology platforms and digital product teams

QUALIFICATION

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field is required
• Master's degree is preferable