Assistant Director of Digital Platforms & Engineering

• TechnologyStrategy & Roadmap
  
• Define andown the digital platform technology strategy, aligned with SIAD Holding’sgrowth vision agenda.
  
• Build andmaintain the multi-year technical roadmap for OTA, tourism, fleet, AI, andshared services platforms.
  
• Make andgovern build / buy / integrate / partner decisions in collaboration with the IT& Digital Transformation Director.
  
• Define andenforce technology standards across backend, frontend, mobile, integration,cloud, security, and data layers.
  
• Identifyfuture platform capabilities required for business scale, AI readiness, andcompetitive positioning.
  
• Presenttechnology strategy, risks, and investment recommendations to executiveleadership.
  
• Product DeliveryLeadership
  
• Translateapproved business priorities into structured platform delivery plans with clearmilestones, owners, and KPIs.
  
• Lead Agiledelivery execution across OTA, tourism, fleet, AI, and shared services productlines.
  
• ManageProduct Managers, Business Analysts, Engineering Leads, QA, DevOps,Integration, and Support teams.
  
• Enforcesprint discipline, backlog governance, scope control, and weekly deliveryreporting.
  
• Drive UATreadiness, release management, and production go-live coordination withbusiness stakeholders.
  
• Eliminateuncontrolled development through formal change governance and dependencymanagement.
  
• PlatformArchitecture Ownership
  
• Own andgovern the overall architecture of all company online platforms.
  
• Design andmaintain scalable, secure, and maintainable backend, frontend, mobile, API,cloud, integration, and data architectures.
  
• Establishreusable shared services: identity & access management, notifications,payments, booking engine, pricing engine, supplier connectivity, workfloworchestration, audit logging, and reporting.
  
• Preventfragmented, duplicated, and undocumented system design through formalarchitecture review and approval.
  
• Maintainarchitecture documentation, system diagrams, integration maps, and data flowdiagrams as living artifacts.
  
• Ensure allarchitecture decisions align with enterprise technology governance and NCA ECC/ PDPL compliance requirements.
  
• Cybersecurity& Application Security
  
• Owncybersecurity execution for all online platforms, aligned with NCA ECC controlsand PDPL obligations.
  
• Embedsecure software development practices (SAST, DAST, code review, secretsmanagement) into the engineering lifecycle.
  
• Enforcesecurity controls for authentication, authorization, API access, admin andsupplier access, customer data protection, payment flows, audit logging, andproduction access.
  
• Coordinatevulnerability assessments and penetration testing; ensure critical andhigh-risk vulnerabilities are remediated within agreed SLAs.
  
• Designplatforms with privacy, auditability, and security-by-default as non-negotiablearchitectural principles. 
  
• IntegrationStrategy & Delivery
  
• Own theintegration strategy and architecture across all platforms and third-partysystems.
  
• Governintegrations with ERP (Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O), CRM, PMS (Opera Cloud /OHIP), channel managers (Fastbooking), payment gateways, supplier APIs, GPS /telematics providers, communications gateways (WhatsApp / Twilio), BI, and dataplatforms.
  
• Define APIstandards, integration patterns, error handling, retry logic, monitoring, and centralizedlogging.
  
• Preventuncontrolled point-to-point integrations; enforce a governed integration layer.
  
• Owntechnical coordination with third-party vendors and system integrators.
  
• Vendor TechnicalGovernance
  
• Managetechnical delivery from all software vendors and implementation partners.
  Reviewvendor architecture, delivery plans, technical quality, and documentationbefore acceptance.
• Monitorvendor milestones, defects, and SLA performance on a weekly basis.
  
• Enforcesource code handover, deployment documentation, and support knowledge transferat project close.
  
• Identifyand escalate vendor dependency risks; recommend mitigation plans to the IT& Digital Transformation Director.
  
• EngineeringManagement
  
• Build,lead, and grow the remote platform engineering office across backend, frontend,mobile, QA, DevOps, integration, data/BI, application security, and supportfunctions.
  
• Establishand enforce engineering standards: coding practices, branching strategy, codereview process, documentation standards, and release discipline.
  
• Manageteam capacity, performance, skill development, and succession planning.
  
• Build anengineering culture grounded in ownership, accountability, documentation, andcontinuous improvement.
  
• DevOps, Cloud& Platform Reliability
  
• Ownplatform reliability in coordination with DevOps and cloud engineering teams.
  
• Establishand maintain CI/CD pipelines, environment management (dev / QA / staging / UAT/ production / DR), and deployment automation.
  
• Implementmonitoring, logging, alerting, backup, and incident response processes for allproduction systems.
  
• Optimizecloud infrastructure cost and performance; ensure scalability readiness forHajj, Umrah, and seasonal demand peaks.
  
• Driveplatform uptime targets and define SLA commitments for each business unit.
  
• QualityAssurance & Release Governance
  
• Ownrelease readiness and quality governance for all digital platforms.
  
• Ensure QAcoverage across functional, API, integration, regression, mobile, performance,and security testing.
  
• Mandaterelease notes, test reports, rollback plans, and deployment checklists beforeevery production release.
  
• Approverelease readiness before submission to the IT & Digital TransformationDirector for final go-live sign-off.
  
• Trackproduction defects, root causes, and corrective actions; drive test automationmaturity over time.
  
• AI, Data &Platform Intelligence
  
• Ensure allplatforms are designed for AI readiness — clean data models, structured eventstreams, and API-accessible data layers.
  
• Support BIdashboards for booking performance, conversion, supplier margin, fleetutilization, system health, and customer behavior analytics.
  
• IdentifyAI and automation opportunities across OTA, tourism, fleet, and hotel platformsto drive operational efficiency.
  
• Platform Support& Operations
  
• EstablishL2/L3 application support capability with defined SLAs, escalation paths, andrunbooks.
  
• Defineincident management, post-mortem, and continuous improvement processes.
  
• Maintain aknowledge base, support runbooks, and troubleshooting guides that reducesupport escalations over time.
  
• Ensureproper handover from development to support teams at each release.
  
  

Requirements

• Bachelor’sdegree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, ComputerEngineering, Information Technology, or a closely related technical discipline.
  
• Master’sdegree, MBA, or executive technology programme is preferred.
  
• Professionalcertifications in cloud (AWS / Azure / GCP), cybersecurity (CISSP, CEH),project delivery (PMP, SAFe), or enterprise architecture (TOGAF) areadvantageous.
  
• 10–15 years Overall technology leadership experience
  
• 7+ years Software engineering leadership
  
• Remote engineering team management
  
• Web and mobile platform delivery
  
• Vendor technical governance
  
• Cloud infrastructure and DevOps
  
• AI/ML product delivery or data platformexperience​