Head of Technology (Engineering, Platform & Living Systems)

Company DescriptionOur Client is a real estate developer building AI-native, agentic homes and workplaces from the ground up, not retrofitted with gadgets. Their spaces use an intelligent agent that perceives the environment, learns its occupants, and adjusts light, air, water, sleep and surroundings toward wellness and longevity. Our Client runs a lab and experience centre, works with best-in-class technology partners, and has a pipeline of thousands of units to deploy into. Our Client is a fast-moving, founder-led organisation where technology, design and construction teams work closely together.Job DescriptionRole OverviewWe are seeking a hands-on, systems-minded Head of Technology to own everything that makes our client's spaces actually work. The client is building AI-native, agentic homes and workplaces: buildings where an intelligent agent perceives the space, learns its occupants, and continuously adjusts light, air, water, sleep and environment toward wellness and longevity.Reporting to the Chief AI Officer (CAIO), you will be the CPU of the technology organisation. You will own the engineering teams, the platform architecture, the hardware integration layer and the reliability of every system deployed, from the experimental lab to fully occupied residential towers. The CAIO sets the vision; the Head of Product, UX & Design defines what is built; you ensure it is built well, runs reliably, and scales.This is not a slideware role. You will be expected to read code, review architecture, and stand in a half-wired lab at 10pm and know why the lights aren't responding.Reporting & TeamReports to: Chief AI Officer (CAIO)Key partners: Head of Product, UX & Design (product owners and roadmap); Technical Program Manager (delivery cadence); Development & Construction teams (building integration)Leads:Agentic Intelligence Engineering: Senior AI Systems Engineer, Backend AI Engineers, AI Systems Engineers, AI Data AnalystApp & Platform Engineering: Mobile Engineers, Frontend Engineers, Backend & Dashboards EngineersHardware & IoT: Smart Home & Automation Engineers, Smart Home Hardware & Operations, IoT & Wearables Engineer, Experience Centre ManagerDelivery Reliability: Quality Engineer, Deployment Engineer / Network Admin, IT ManagerResearch & Development: Wellness & Longevity Specialist, Robotics Engineers, R&D AI Systems EngineerKey Responsibilities Platform Architecture & Technical DirectionOwn the end-to-end architecture of the platform: device integration (Home Assistant over KNX, Zigbee, Matter/Thread and vendor ecosystems), the MQTT event bus, the data lake, the Perception backend server, and the agentic layerMake the architecture reusable by design: the same core must power the Work product (offices, meeting rooms, desk pods) and the Home product (apartment-by-apartment deployments), and later hospitalityDefine the local-first vs. cloud model: fast, deterministic local control for everyday actions, with frontier models (Claude, OpenAI, etc.) reserved for heavier reasoning, while respecting PII and UAE data regulationsLead build-vs-buy decisions. We integrate best-in-class partners (sleep tech, wearables, lighting) rather than reinventing them, and build only where it creates a durable advantage Engineering Leadership & DeliveryBuild, hire and lead the engineering teams across AI, app/platform, hardware and reliability, with a bias for senior, high-ownership engineers who want to work at the frontierPartner with the product owners (who report to the Head of Product, UX & Design) so that every product line has a clear owner for what and a clear engineering lead for howSet engineering standards: code review, CI/CD, environments, documentation, and a predictable sprint cadence alongside the Technical Program ManagerTranslate the CAIO's vision and product roadmaps into realistic technical plans, timelines and staffing Living Systems, Hardware & the LabOwn the physical technology layer: lighting, sensors, switches, smart mirrors, speakers, cameras, wearables integration, and future roboticsStand up and run the lab and Experience Centre spaces. Get real switches, lights, pressure sensors and beds wired so that software teams can build against real hardwareDrive hardware RFPs and vendor selection (e.g. Signify and other lighting/controls partners) together with procurement, and secure the technical side of exclusive partnershipsBuild digital twin simulators so that software can be developed and tested before physical spaces (e.g. a gym, spa or full apartment) exist Reliability, Security & PrivacyOwn uptime and quality for every deployed space. A building of hundreds of units needs automated monitoring, telemetry, alerting and self-healing, not people on call at 2amEstablish QA practices for hardware/software integration: functional, regression, stress and chaos testingLead the privacy-first technical design for biometric and occupant data, including the early privacy impact assessment, consent and per-person data separation within a householdGuarantee graceful degradation: every space must keep working manually (physical switches, safe defaults, emergency override) during Wi-Fi, cloud or AI outagesDefine and maintain the AI safety guardrails and kill-switch design Research & DevelopmentOversee R&D into wellness and longevity technology, robotics and new sensing modalities, turning promising experiments into production-ready capabilitiesMaintain a technology radar so the client stays ahead of what Apple Home, Alexa, Samsung and other developers are shippingRequirementsRequirementsTechnical & Leadership RequirementsArchitecture: Distributed/event-driven systems, edge + cloud hybrid design, data platforms, API and integration designAI & Agents: Practical experience shipping LLM-based or agentic systems; RAG, tool use, local model deployment, evaluation and guardrailsIoT & Smart Buildings: Home Assistant, MQTT, KNX, Zigbee, Matter/Thread, BMS integration, network design for dense multi-unit buildingsApp & Platform: Mobile (Flutter or native), PWA/web, backend services, dashboards; containerisation (Docker/Kubernetes)Reliability: Observability, telemetry, incident management, QA automation, SRE practicesSecurity & Privacy: Privacy by design, biometric/health data handling, regional data regulation (UAE PDPL or GDPR equivalent)Leadership: Built and led multi-disciplinary engineering teams (software + hardware) of 15+; strong hiring track record; comfortable in a fast-moving, founder-led environmentPreferred QualificationsHardware + Software Track Record: You have shipped products where software meets the physical world: smart home, IoT, consumer electronics, robotics, wearables or building technologyHealth/Wellness Tech Exposure: Experience at, or integrating with, companies such as Whoop, Oura, Ultrahuman, Eight Sleep or similar is a strong plusScale Experience: You have taken a system from prototype to many deployed sites or thousands of devices, and lived through what breaksHands-On Credibility: You still prototype, review pull requests and can debug a misbehaving devicePragmatic Judgement: You know when to integrate a partner, when to build, and when "good enough this week" beats "perfect next quarter"Why This Role?Real estate has barely changed in decades, while the device on your wrist has become smarter than your home. Our client is closing that gap, building homes and workplaces that are AI-native from the ground up rather than retrofitted with gadgets. As Head of Technology you will build the engine behind that vision, with real buildings, real residents and a pipeline of thousands of units to deploy into. Few roles anywhere let you shape agentic AI, IoT and wellness technology at the scale of entire buildings.Additional Suggestions For The CandidateShow Us Something Physical: We love candidates who can walk us through a system they built that controls real-world hardware, including what went wrongReliability Is a Feature: Come ready to talk about how you would keep hundreds of apartments running when a light bulb, a router or a cloud model failsBuilder's Mindset: We are looking for someone who says "I'll get it working" rather than "that's not my department."BenefitsOffered Salary: Competitive, in line with market standards for the role and seniority, along with additional benefits as per the company's band structure