Engineering Lead / Principal Engineer

Engineering Lead / Principal Engineer — Enterprise Platforms & AutomationLocation: Abu Dhabi, UAE | Full-timeThe RoleOur client is seeking a hands-on Engineering Lead / Principal Engineer to lead the architecture and delivery of complex enterprise platforms, automation and workflow-driven products.This is not a pure management role. You will lead a small engineering team while remaining hands-on across architecture, design, coding and production delivery.Key ResponsibilitiesOwn architecture, system design, APIs, data models and technical delivery.Design complex workflows, state management and human approval processes.Build scalable enterprise integrations, including ERP/SAP where relevant.Lead engineers while remaining hands-on with code and technical reviews.Establish standards for security, testing, CI/CD, observability and reliability.Translate ambiguous business requirements into practical technical solutions.Identify appropriate opportunities to leverage AI/LLMs within enterprise workflows.Requirements10+ years software engineering experience.4+ years at Staff, Principal, Lead Engineer or equivalent level.Strong backend and distributed-systems experience.Expertise in APIs, databases, microservices and enterprise integration.Experience with workflow-heavy or transaction-heavy platforms.Cloud, Kubernetes, containers and CI/CD experience.Strong security, reliability and observability mindset.Recent hands-on production engineering experience.Strong AdvantageWorkflow/BPM or state-machine experience.Event-driven architecture.ERP/SAP integrations.Azure.LLM/GenAI or agentic AI in production.Financial services, government or other regulated environments.***Only successful candidates will be contacted ***