Principal Engineer

Job description / Role

Established in the 1930s as a trading business, Al-Futtaim Group today is one of the most diversified and progressive, privately held regional businesses headquartered in Dubai, United A"rab Emirates. Structured into five operating divisions; automotive, financial services, real estate, retail and healthcare; employing more than 35,000 employees across more than 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, Al-Futtaim Group partners with over 200 of the world's most admired and innovative brands. Al-Futtaim Group's entrepreneurship and relentless customer focus enables the organisation to continue to grow and expand; responding to the changing needs of our customers within the societies in which we operate.

By upholding our values of respect, excellence, collaboration and integrity; Al-Futtaim Group continues to enrich the lives and aspirations of our customers each and every day.

Overview of the role

The pronciple Engineer is responsible for providing direction and guidence to support and deliver businees solutions in their domain expertise aligned with Group IT strategy and defiend architecture patterns and principles.

It is also expected to collaborate with other stakeholders to find the right fit and build consensus to support business case and benefits realization and will be responsible and accountable for developing overall solution design and securing the approval (SDAF - Solution Design Approval Forum) in collaboration with respective Domain Architect

What you will do

- Set business domain goals that are cohesive and aligned with product, design and business.
- Responsible for designing solutions that meet Functional and Non-Functional requirements whilst adhering to Architecture principles and Technology standards. Follows the 'Architect to Operate' as a key principle to ensure solutions transition smoothly into Run.
- Participates in RFI/P process and evaluates technical capabilities and commercial prudence of vendors/solutions to recommend right fit, validates technical effort estimations.
- Accountable for owning the design and creating the required documentation to submit to the Solution Design Approval Forum in to get design approval.
- Promotes reusability of existing solutions by adopting approved design patterns
- Participate in design thinking workshops with key stakeholders.
- Responsible for signing off on the Non-Functional testing ensuring the correct types of testing are conducted as per the application type (e.g. customer facing transaction application requires performance testing)
- Identify architecture related risks, putting the correct mitigation plan in place and managing until resolution
- Maintain a broad and up to date skillset of the latest market trends, competitive insights, and technologies whilst sharing these within the technical community
- Provides advice on supplier and cost options, ensures that the validity of the overall solution is fully represented.

Requirements

Required skills to be successful

- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Good leadership and teamwork skills, constantly strives for better ways of doing things.
- Technical knowledge covering: Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, RPA, Mobile, Web, Cloud
- Experience of Cloud Architecture covering IaaS, PaaS and SaaS based applications, ideally using Microsoft Azure.
- Experience designing cloud native applications using Containers and Serverless technologies following Microservice based architectures.
- Strong experience in the design and implementation of multiple integration patterns covering SOA and API's.
- Analytical and creative in solving problems.
- Solid understanding and experience of ITIL covering Incident, Problem & Change to improve the Operations Architecture
- Understanding of Enterprise Architecture Frameworks, such as TOGAF or Zachman

What equips you for the role

- 8-10 years of work experience in a Solution Architecture / Consulting related position ideally with experience in one of the following industries: Corporate Functions (Finance, Treasury, HR, Procurement, Legal etc.)
- Strong familiarity with SAP Cloud applications and its integration capabilities with other cloud and digital applications.
- Experience in a similar role with full autonomy.
- Experience in coaching and developing teams; Principal Engineers are considered key partners in any engineers' growth in all levels
- Demonstrable experience in leading large projects (5-10M Capex Investment Per Initiative).
- Background in application development.
- Must have a breadth of expertise across the various architecture domains: Business, Data, Application, Infrastructure and Security.

About the Company

Established in the 1930's, the Al-Futtaim Group initially operated as a trading enterprise. Rapid development throughout the 1940's and 50's saw it establish itself regionally as an integrated commercial, industrial and services organisation, positioning itself one of the leading business houses in the lower Gulf region. Today, it operates collectively over 40 companies bearing the Al-Futtaim name, dominates many market segments in the UAE, and has expanded its sphere of operation to include Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Egypt.

The Group comprises a diverse range of strategically positioned operating subsidiaries and associate companies, structured to give the Al-Futtaim Group the flexibility and versatility to keep ahead of local competition while keeping pace with the ever-evolving global business scenario. The Groups continued investment in world-class systems technology is clear evidence of its commitment to maintain leading edge performance and service delivery.

The success of the Al-Futtaim Group can be attributed to a business approach that combines the ability to change with the traditional values of integrity, service and social responsibility that define its core business philosophy. This, linked with the Groups belief in decentralisation, gives the heads of the operating companies a high degree of functional autonomy and authority, providing the Group with essential flexibility, and individual employees a clearly defined work culture and sense of responsibility.