Engineering Director

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.