Head of Engineering – Fintech/Mobile Wallet | Dubai | Strategic Leadership Role

📍 Job Location:

Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Employment Type: Full-Time
Nationality: Arab Nationals (Male)

Job Overview:

We’re hiring a Head of Engineering to lead the entire technology function of a next-generation mobile wallet platform. This role combines technical depth, people leadership, and strategic vision to build a secure, scalable, and world-class digital financial ecosystem. Reporting directly to the executive leadership team, you will play a pivotal role in defining architecture, growing engineering talent, and ensuring platform reliability in a high-growth fintech environment.

Key Responsibilities:

🧠 Technical & Platform Leadership

• Define the engineering roadmap, architecture, and technology vision for the mobile wallet.

• Oversee development of core components: KYC flows, transaction processing, wallet ledgering, and integrations with banks/PSPs.

• Deliver a highly available (99.9%+ uptime), secure, and scalable backend system.

• Enforce best practices around secure coding, latency optimization, and system reliability.

👥 People & Team Management

• Lead Engineering Managers, Architects, and cross-functional tech teams (backend, mobile, frontend).

• Build and scale distributed engineering teams across multiple geographies.

• Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.

• Define career ladders, mentorship programs, and performance frameworks.

🚀 Product & Execution Alignment

• Collaborate with Product, Design, and Compliance teams to ensure seamless delivery of core fintech services: onboarding, top-ups, P2P transfers, bill payments, etc.

• Track engineering KPIs: velocity, incident rates, bug ratios, and delivery metrics.

• Champion agile methodology and iterative product development.

🔐 Security, Compliance & Ops

• Ensure alignment with regulatory standards (KYC, AML, PCI DSS, SOC 2).

• Build incident response, monitoring, and observability frameworks for proactive risk management.

• Partner with DevOps to drive CI/CD maturity and scalable infrastructure.

🤝 Executive & Cross-Functional Stakeholder Management

• Act as a strategic voice in company-wide planning, OKRs, and product strategy.

• Regularly engage with leadership from Product, Growth, Finance, and Support to align priorities.

• Represent engineering in board-level updates, strategy reviews, and external vendor evaluations.

Desired Candidate Profile:

• Experience: 10–15 years in software engineering; 3–5 years in engineering leadership roles.

• Domain: Strong background in fintech, payments, or transactional systems is a must.

• Tech Stack: Deep expertise in distributed systems, microservices, and secure API design.

• Leadership: Proven ability to lead and scale cross-functional engineering organizations.

• Compliance: Knowledge of KYC/AML, fintech regulations, and data security standards.

• Soft Skills: Excellent communication, strategic thinking, and cross-functional collaboration.

Nice to Have:

• Experience in emerging markets or agent/merchant ecosystem models.

• Exposure to mobile payments (USSD, QR, NFC, POS).

• Past collaborations with telecoms, banks, or payment service providers.