Job Description

Role : Head of Technical Platforms and Architecture
Location : Abu Dhabi

Role Purpose:

The individual will be responsible for overseeing teams around Integration, Data and Emerging Platforms (Gen AI), Testing CoE, DevSecOps, SRE and Partner Integration. The role aims at providing leadership, vision, and direction for these functions within the bank. This position is responsible for recruiting, developing, and retaining talent, as well as ensuring the software engineering staff has the skills and capabilities to meet business needs. The role also oversees the implementation of software engineering initiatives and leading methodologies for software development and is responsible for championing best practices in the listed areas of responsibility and ensuring initiatives achieve business outcomes.

• Lead, mentor, and coach software engineering, enterprise architecture, testing teams to deliver high-quality software products and services.
• Define and communicate the strategy, roadmap, and goals in alignment with the business vision and objectives for this critical function.
• Establish and enforce software engineering, Integration, DevSecOps and Testing standards, processes, methodologies, and tools to ensure quality, reliability, security, and performance of software products and services.
• Manage the software engineering budget, resources, and timelines, and ensure timely and effective delivery of software products and services.
• Collaborate with other senior leaders, stakeholders, and customers to understand their needs, expectations, and feedback, and to ensure alignment and integration of software engineering solutions.
• Drive innovation and continuous improvement in software engineering practices, emerging platforms (Gen AI), integration architecture technologies, DevSecOps, SRE, Testing and culture.
• Identify and resolve issues, risks, and challenges, related to the responsibilities in the role and resolve/ escalate them as appropriate.
• Collaborate with appropriate functions within the bank and lead, from technology function, the set up of Sandbox environments to complement Fintech partnerships.

Specialist Skills / Technical Knowledge Required for this role:

Leadership and Strategy Responsibilities

• Lead the software engineering and enterprise architecture organization to successful delivery of business outcomes.
• Manage the budget, with ongoing focus on personnel, vendor, and capital expenditures.
• Build strong working relationships with business leaders to ensure software engineering teams meet expectations and contribute to achievement of business goals.
• Collaborate with IT and business leaders to develop and execute short- and long-term strategic plans, especially aimed and enhancing the banks software and solution delivery.
• Support and facilitate innovative and experimental software development work to test new ideas, within bounded cost and time frames.
• Provide leadership, vision, and direction for the IT organization, as it relates to this function.
• Positions the function/ practice with the business and digital teams to work in an agile way to support delivery and value to the Bank. product roadmaps.

Talent Management Responsibilities

• Develop workforce strategy to meet the organization’s current and future software engineering needs through developing, hiring, and/or sourcing talent.
• Manage resource allocation across teams to maximize business impact of resources and ensure each team has the skills and capabilities needed to achieve its objectives.
• Manage software engineering talent, playing a key role in performance management and compensation processes, role and competency definition, and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
• Partner with Human Resources to create learning and development opportunities aligned to the organization’s skill and capability needs, and to provide rewarding career paths for engineering, enterprise architecture, testing and other staff within the function.
• Recruit and hire talent to address new needs and skill gaps.
• Facilitate collaboration and partnership across teams and stakeholders.
• Build a culture that supports learning, collaboration, transparency, and inclusiveness.
• Manage employee engagement and promote a compelling employee value proposition to retain staff.

Oversight Responsibilities for Engineering and Enterprise Architecture Activities

• Champion best practices, methods and tools to support Platform leaders to deliver faster to business and continue to enhance bank’s enterprise architecture landscape.
• Lead software engineering, enterprise architecture and testing teams and other stakeholders to set goals for improving code quality, maintainability, security, and scalability. Monitor progress against these goals.
• Implement and manage software development status reporting, metrics, and benchmarks.
• Manage collaboration with Infrastructure and Operations to ensure software performs well in production and meets SLAs.
• Ensure software is effectively secured and that risks are mitigated.
• Oversee management of relationships with consultants, vendors, and contractors and support negotiation of statements of work and business terms with suppliers.
• Oversee SRE, Testing, DevOps processes and practices, including automating the handoff of code releases from development to operations.

Specialist Skills / Technical Knowledge, Technical Competencies Required for this role:

• Demonstrated leadership skills and experience.
• Strong talent management skills including talent development, coaching, mentoring, and team motivation.
• Experience leading geographically distributed teams.
• Ability to build and maintain strong cross-functional partnerships at all levels of the organization.
• Strong business acumen and ability to understand and drive business objectives.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical information in a condensed manner to various stakeholders verbally and in writing.
• Strong organizational skills, including an ability to perform under pressure and manage multiple priorities with competing demands for resources.
• Excellent understanding of software development methodologies including DevSecOps, Testing, SRE across platforms and best practices for the same.
• Understanding of relevant tools and platforms (e.g. cloud platforms, web technologies, client-server technologies, continuous integration, and deployment), with an eagerness to learn about new and unfamiliar technologies.
• Adaptability and ability to manage rapid change in business needs, processes, or technologies.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and inspire others.
• Strong strategic thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills, with the ability to balance short-term and long-term goals.
• Highly motivated, self-driven, and results-oriented, with a passion for software engineering excellence.