Overview
We are seeking an experienced Engineering Manager to join a Fintech start-up in Bahrain. You will be a true practitioner of continuous improvement and agile principles, not just someone who facilitates stand-ups. You will lead a team of approximately 10 engineers, inheriting an existing team and elevating their performance through better processes, clearer goals, and proactive obstacle removal. You will be deeply involved in improving the SDLC, implementing metrics-driven improvements, managing stakeholders across the organization, and growing your team members' careers. You should understand engineering at a technical level and be respected by engineers as someone who has been in the trenches building mission-critical systems.
What you'll be doing
- Lead and grow a team of 10 engineers across backend, frontend, mobile, and DevOps
- Implement and continuously improve agile / lean processes tailored to our startup context
- Use engineering metrics (cycle time, deployment frequency, lead time) to identify and eliminate bottlenecks
- Proactively remove blockers and create an environment where engineers can do their best work
- Manage stakeholder expectations and communications across product, business, and leadership
- Improve SDLC processes, development workflows, and engineering standards
- Conduct 1-on-1s, performance reviews, and career development conversations
- Lead incident response and blameless post-mortems to drive learning and improvement
- Manage hybrid / remote teams effectively across time zones
- Support compliance efforts including ISO27001 and SOC II audits
- Balance technical debt with feature delivery and business needs
- Foster a culture of ownership, quality, and continuous learning
Requirements
10+ years of experience building mission-critical systems in production environments5+ years in engineering management or technical leadership rolesDeep understanding of Agile / Lean principles - you've lived them, adapted them, and made them work in real environmentsContinuous improvement mindset - you use data and feedback loops to make teams better over timeStrong stakeholder management - you can align diverse groups and manage competing prioritiesGenuine passion for people management - you care about growing engineers and building high-performing teamsSDLC expertise - proven track record improving development processes and team velocityExperience managing hybrid / remote teams - comfortable coordinating across locations and time zonesMetrics-driven approach - you measure what matters and use data to drive decisionsTechnical credibility - engineers respect you because you understand the work deeplyStartup mentality - comfortable with ambiguity, rapid change, and building processes from first principlesNice to Have
Hands-on technical skills - still comfortable reviewing code or contributing when neededExperience with ISO27001, SOC II, or other compliance frameworksFintech, financial services, or regulated industry experienceExperience scaling engineering teams and practicesBackground in TypeScript, React, AWS, or our core tech stackArabic language skills or experience in Middle Eastern marketsWhat Success Looks like
Team velocity and quality metrics improve over timeEngineers feel supported, unblocked, and growing in their careersSDLC processes become smoother and more predictableStakeholders have clear visibility into engineering work and timelinesTeam ships high-quality features consistently and reliablyPost-mortems lead to meaningful improvements, not repeated incidents#J-18808-Ljbffr