Digital & AI Section Head

RESPONSIBILITIES/DUTIES

Technical Leadership & Team Mentorship 

• Lead, develop, and retain a high-performing development team, ensuring appropriate skills coverage, succession planning, and workload balance across the section.

• Direct recruitment, performance management, and professional development, identifying training needs and career pathways for team members.

• Set and enforce engineering standards, coding conventions, and peer code review practices, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning.

Digital Strategy & Architecture Governance

• Define and maintain the technical roadmap for internal applications, balancing immediate operational needs against long-term platform sustainability and total cost of ownership.

• Own architectural decisions for the application portfolio, ensuring solutions are scalable, maintainable, and consistent with enterprise architecture principles.

• Evaluate and approve technology selections and third-party components, including build-versus-buy assessments and supporting business cases.

Artificial Intelligence & Innovation

• Lead the adoption of Artificial Intelligence within the development lifecycle, including AI-assisted tooling, measuring productivity impact while maintaining quality standards.

• Oversee the design and integration of AI capabilities into internal applications, translating enterprise challenges into practical, production-ready technical solutions.

• Establish governance, quality assurance protocols, and safety controls for all AI-enabled features, ensuring traceability, data protection, and human oversight of AI-generated outputs.

• Act as subject matter expert on AI capabilities into clear, actionable business insights for non-technical stakeholders, and monitor emerging tools that measurably improve service delivery and operational efficiency.

Delivery, Quality & Security

• Plan, prioritize, and oversee delivery of the development portfolio, managing scope, schedule, dependencies, resource allocation, and the section's operating and project budgets.

• Ensure security-by-design across the portfolio, embedding secure coding practices, access controls, and data protection requirements into the development lifecycle.

• Govern CI/CD pipelines, release management, and test coverage, ensuring changes follow established IT change management processes; oversee application support, incident resolution, and root cause analysis for in-house systems.

Stakeholder Engagement & Documentation

• Partner with business units to capture requirements, define priorities, and translate complex business challenges into clear technical specifications and system designs.

• Report portfolio status, risks, and performance to IT management through agreed key performance indicators, and ensure technical documentation is comprehensive and current.

Safety Responsibilities:

• Promote a positive safety culture within the workplace and attend any safety-related meetings or briefings as required within the job role.

• Comply with the requirements of RDMC RQHSE Policy and Safety Management System.

• Be mindful that Safety, Security, and Environmental protection are everyone’s responsibility. All staff members are accountable for reporting and intervening in any Safety, Security, or Environmental violations.

ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS, KNOWLEDGE & EXPERIENCE

QUALIFICATIONS: 

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related technical field

• Professional fluency in both English and Arabic; proficiency in French is highly preferred.

KNOWLEDGE: 

• Relevant certifications in software architecture, cloud platforms, or delivery management are preferred.

• Strong command of modern web and mobile development stacks, including Next.js, React, TypeScript, and React Native, sufficient to direct architecture and review delivered work.

• Solid understanding of backend development (Node.js), RESTful API design, relational and NoSQL databases, and authentication/authorization models.

• Working knowledge of AI and machine learning concepts, AI-assisted development tooling, and the governance considerations of deploying AI in enterprise environments is a advantage.

• Sound understanding of DevOps practices, Git workflows, containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and CI/CD automation.

• Familiarity with IT service management and information security frameworks (ITIL, ISO 27001) and their application to software delivery.

EXPERIENCE: 

• 7–10 years of progressive experience in in enterprise application development, with a proven record of delivering internal business systems and workflow automation.

• Proven track record of owning complex, enterprise-level AI projects from ideation to production.

DESIRED BEHAVIORS

• Ability to decompose complex business challenges into simple, effective technical solutions.

• Strong leadership presence, with the ability to develop people and hold a team to high professional standards.

• Excellent communication skills, engaging credibly with both technical teams and executive stakeholders.

• Sound, evidence-based decision-making, with the judgement to escalate appropriately.

• Highly organized and resilient under operational pressure, with a proactive commitment to continuous learning.

• Outstanding analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate technical information into clear insights for non-technical stakeholders.