The Job in short

As an Engineering Director at Backbase, you will lead a multi-project engineering organization delivering complex digital banking solutions for leading financial institutions in the Middle East region. You are accountable for building a high-performing engineering organization that consistently delivers predictable, high-quality software while developing future engineering leaders.

This is not only a delivery leadership role. You are expected to continuously improve how engineering operates by introducing modern engineering practices, scaling engineering excellence across teams and driving AI-assisted software development.

You will lead Engineering Managers and Technical Leaders across multiple customer engagements, balancing customer success, engineering quality and organizational growth.

Meet the Job

Lead and grow an engineering organization of 100+ engineers across multiple customer programs.
Coach, develop and raise the bar for Engineering Managers through regular mentoring, feedback and performance management.
Drive engineering excellence by improving delivery predictability, quality, developer experience, operational readiness and engineering metrics.
Establish consistent engineering governance, release readiness, architecture and quality practices across multiple teams.
Partner with customers, Delivery Managers, Technical Leaders, Architects and Product leadership to build trusted engineering relationships and resolve complex delivery challenges.
Build a culture of ownership, accountability, continuous improvement and technical excellence.
Lead engineering transformation through adoption of AI-native development practices, Agentic SDLC, automation and modern platform capabilities.
Develop engineering capability for the region through hiring, succession planning, technical communities and career development.

What success looks like

You build an organization where:

Engineering Managers grow into exceptional leaders.
Teams deliver predictably with a balance of quality.
Engineering decisions are driven by data.
Customers trust engineering commitments.
AI measurably improves engineering productivity and quality.
Engineering standards scale consistently across projects and teams.
Difficult organizational changes are implemented when required to improve long-term outcomes.

How about you

Proven experience leading multiple engineering teams (50+ engineers) through Engineering Managers.
Experience operating large-scale software delivery organizations across multiple concurrent projects.
Strong understanding of modern software engineering practices including architecture governance, CI/CD, testing strategies, observability, operational excellence and engineering metrics.
Demonstrated success building and coaching engineering leaders
Experience leading organizational transformation and driving measurable engineering improvements.
Strong customer-facing leadership with the ability to build trust while navigating difficult delivery situations.
Hands-on understanding of AI-assisted software engineering, developer tooling and Agentic SDLC with the ability to pragmatically introduce these practices across engineering organizations.
Excellent communication skills with both executive stakeholders and engineering teams.
Bias for ownership, continuous improvement and data-driven decision making.

Leadership principles

Engineering Directors at Backbase:

Build leaders.
Measure outcomes, not activity.
Solve systemic problems rather than local optimizations.
Raise engineering quality without slowing delivery.
Challenge the status quo and continuously improve how engineering works.
Embrace AI as an engineering multiplier while maintaining strong engineering fundamentals.

(Services) Engineering Director

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