AI Technology & Data Lead

Black & Grey HR is recruiting for a well-established retail group in Saudi Arabia looking to hire a skilled AI Technology & Data Lead. The role will drive the technical vision, architecture, data foundation, and engineering standards across the organization's AI portfolio, with hands-on involvement in solution design, integration, data architecture, and complex technical problem-solving.

• Define the technical roadmap and architecture for AI, data, and intelligent automation initiatives.
• Translate business requirements into scalable technical architectures, integration solutions, and delivery plans.
• Establish engineering standards and reusable architectures for APIs, data pipelines, cloud services, AI/ML solutions, security, testing, and deployment.
• Review solution designs, code quality, infrastructure decisions, and production-readiness requirements.

• Define data architecture covering ingestion, transformation, storage, data modelling, governance, quality, and access.
• Enable enterprise data for AI/ML, GenAI, forecasting, recommendation, optimization, and automation use cases.
• Guide integration of AI solutions with enterprise platforms including ERP, data platforms, e-commerce, CRM, loyalty, and operational systems.

• Provide technical leadership across the complete AI lifecycle from discovery and design through deployment and ongoing operations.
• Act as the senior technical escalation point for architecture, integration, cloud, data, performance, and production issues.
• Work with technology vendors and implementation partners to review technical designs, estimates, dependencies, and delivery quality.
• Drive requirements for monitoring, observability, documentation, technical handover, and production support.

• Mentor engineers, data professionals, and delivery teams on AI, data, cloud, software engineering, architecture, and MLOps practices.
• Collaborate with business, IT, security, enterprise architecture, and senior stakeholders to ensure effective technical decision-making.
• Identify technical debt, architectural risks, and opportunities for standardisation and reuse across the AI portfolio.

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Engineering, AI, or a related technical discipline.
• 8+ years of relevant technology experience, including 3+ years in technical leadership, architecture, or engineering leadership.
• Strong hands-on experience across AI/ML engineering, data engineering, software architecture, APIs, cloud, and enterprise integration.
• Proven experience designing and product ionizing AI/ML or GenAI solutions in enterprise environments.
• Strong proficiency in Python and SQL with the ability to review and contribute to technical solutions.
• Strong understanding of data platforms, data modelling, ETL/ELT, data governance, and data quality.
• Experience with cloud platforms; AWS is preferred.
• Experience with Docker/Kubernetes, CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, monitoring, Dev Ops/MLOps, and security practices.
• Strong understanding of system design, APIs, microservices, event-driven architecture, and enterprise integration.
• Proven experience working across multiple technical teams, vendors, and business stakeholders.
• Experience in retail, grocery, e-commerce, supply chain, pricing, personalization, or customer analytics is an advantage.
• Relevant AI, cloud, data, or architecture certifications are an advantage.