Founding Lead Engineer Dubai, UAE | Full-Time | Founding Team

Build a Category-Defining AI Platform from the Ground Up

We are building a next-generation technology platform that combines artificial intelligence, marketplace infrastructure and intelligent automation to transform a large and fragmented service industry.

Based in Dubai and designed for regional and global scale, our mission is to create a trusted, technology-driven ecosystem by German Quality Norms that redefines how consumers discover, book and experience services.

We are now assembling our founding engineering team and are looking for an exceptional Founding Lead Engineer who wants to play a central role in shaping both the technology and the future engineering organisation of the company.

This is a rare opportunity to join at the earliest stage, work directly with the founders and build a scalable platform from day one.

For the right candidate, this role offers the opportunity to evolve into Head of Engineering or CTO as the company scales.

Your Mission

As Founding Lead Engineer, you will be responsible for designing, building and scaling the technical foundation of the company.

You will take ownership of architecture decisions, engineering standards, infrastructure and development processes while helping build a world-class technology organisation.

You will work directly with the founders to transform a validated product vision into a scalable and commercially successful platform.

Key ResponsibilitiesTechnical Leadership

• Define and own the overall system architecture
• Establish engineering standards and best practices
• Lead technical decision-making across the platform
• Ensure scalability, reliability and security from the start
• Build a strong engineering culture

Product Development

• Architect and oversee development of mobile applications
• Design and build scalable backend services and APIs
• Define data models and platform infrastructure
• Integrate third-party systems and services
• Collaborate closely with product and design stakeholders

Infrastructure & Operations

• Design cloud infrastructure and deployment pipelines
• Implement CI/CD processes
• Establish monitoring, logging and observability standards
• Ensure platform security and compliance best practices

Team Building

• Help recruit future engineering team members
• Mentor and guide developers
• Participate in technical hiring decisions
• Contribute to the long-term engineering roadmap

Who You Are

• You take ownership and responsibility beyond your job title
• You enjoy building from zero rather than maintaining existing systems
• You are comfortable operating in ambiguity and making decisions with incomplete information
• You care about business outcomes, not just code quality
• You thrive in fast-moving environments
• You have a builder mindset and enjoy solving complex problems
• You are excited by the challenge of creating something meaningful from the ground up

What We're Looking For (Required)

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong experience designing and building scalable software systems
• Proven experience with modern backend architectures
• Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure and DevOps practices
• Experience working in startup or high-growth environments
• Excellent problem-solving and communication skills
• Ability to operate independently and take ownership

Preferred

• Marketplace or platform experience
• Mobile application experience
• SaaS experience
• Experience building AI-powered products
• Familiarity with modern LLM ecosystems and AI integrations
• Experience leading engineering teams
• Previous startup founding or early-stage experience

Technology Stack

• Flutter
• TypeScript
• NestJS
• React
• PostgreSQL
• AWS
• Modern LLM APIs and AI services

Experience with every technology is not required, but strong architectural and engineering fundamentals are essential.

Experience integrating AI and LLM-base