AI/ML Engineering Manager

Job description / Role

Description

Salla is the leading commerce platform in the GCC, built in Saudi Arabia to support businesses and entrepreneurs across every stage of growth. We provide the tools, services, and ecosystem merchants need to build stores, run operations, and reach customers with confidence. Our AI department is building the intelligence layer that transforms how merchants create, manage, and grow their online businesses — with AI products designed from the ground up.

We’re looking for a founding Engineering Manager to build and lead a new team focused on AI-powered product innovation. This team exists to answer one question: what AI-powered products should Salla build to maximize value for our merchants?

Responsibilities

Product discovery & strategy

• Identify, scope, and prioritize AI product opportunities that directly impact merchant revenue, retention, or operational efficiency
• Develop a rolling roadmap of AI-powered experiences validated against merchant needs, market dynamics, and business impact
• Define success metrics for each initiative and kill or scale projects based on data, not momentum

Execution & shipping

• Ship your first product within the first quarter — we value velocity and learning over perfection
• Build on top of existing AI infrastructure across the department — your job is to create products, not rebuild engines
• Establish a rapid prototyping and validation cadence: concept → prototype → merchant pilot → scale or kill

Team building & leadership

• Build and develop a versatile team that blends data science, engineering, and product thinking
• Operate as a peer to other technical leads across the AI department while maintaining a collaborative, non-competitive dynamic
• Create a team culture of experimentation, merchant obsession, and fast iteration

Cross-functional collaboration

• Partner across the AI department to leverage generative AI capabilities, recommendation signals, and platform infrastructure for new product surfaces
• Work closely with product, design, and business stakeholders to ensure AI experiences translate into merchant outcomes
• Coordinate with ML platform and operations teams for infrastructure needs without building parallel systems

Requirements

Must haves:

• 5+ years in engineering or ML roles, with at least 2 years managing a team that shipped AI/ML-powered products (not just models or infrastructure — products used by real customers)
• Track record of 0-to-1 product development: you’ve taken something from concept to production and measured its impact
• Strong product instinct — you can identify what to build, not just how to build it. You think in terms of merchant outcomes, not technical capabilities
• Hands-on technical depth in at least one of: LLM applications, recommendation systems, or ML-powered product features. You don’t need to write every line of code, but you need to make sound architectural calls and earn your team’s technical respect
• Comfort with ambiguity — you’ll define the roadmap, not inherit one
• Experience working in or building for e-commerce, marketplace, or merchant-facing platforms

Strong preference:

• Experience with MENA markets, Arabic-language AI products, or regional commerce patterns (seasonal dynamics, WhatsApp commerce, social selling)
• Background at a high-growth technology company where you operated with startup speed and increasing scale
• Familiarity with multi-agent architectures or AI agent platforms
• Arabic language proficiency (business-level or native)