Manager – Data Engineering, Architecture & Reporting Platform - Dubai / Abu Dhabi

Agthia Group is building a brand-new Group Data & AI function — and we're looking for the person to lead our data engineering and platform architecture from the ground up.Today, Agthia's data lives across multiple disconnected systems, with no centralised platform and leadership still working from spreadsheets. You'll change that: designing and building the cloud lakehouse, the pipelines, and the certified semantic layer that every dashboard and AI model across the group will run on.This is a hands-on leadership role. You'll build personally, review your team's work, and set the technical standard for a function that's still being defined — with real influence over the tools and architecture choices from day one.What you'll own:Cloud lakehouse architecture, storage, compute, security and access controlData pipelines and integration across ERP, sales, supply chain and manufacturing systemsThe certified semantic layer — the single source of truth for reporting and analyticsDataOps practices: CI/CD, monitoring, infrastructure as codeA growing team of engineers, plus offshore/vendor resourcesWhat you'll bring:Strong experience in data engineering and cloud data platform deliveryDeep experience with Azure data services (Data Lake Storage, Data Factory) and Databricks (Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Workflows)Strong SQL, Python and SparkA track record of building data platforms from immature or fragmented environments — not just maintaining an existing oneComfort operating with ambiguity and setting standards where none exist yet