Head of Data Engineering

Job Description

Head of Data Engineering

Location: Cairo and/or Riyadh

Reports to: Co-founder & CTO

Regulatory Context: SAMA-regulated entity (KSA), CBE/FRA-regulated entity (Egypt)

Company Stage: Series-B fintech / digital bank

Role Purpose

The Head of Data Engineering is responsible for building and operating the company's secure, scalable, regulator-grade data platform, which serves as the foundation for:

• Credit decisioning and risk analytics
• Financial and regulatory reporting
• Customer analytics and personalization
• Fraud detection and financial crime monitoring
• Executive reporting and board oversight

This role ensures that data is accurate, governed, secure, and available in near-real time, while meeting SAMA and CBE regulatory requirements and enabling the organization to scale into a public-company-grade digital bank.

The Head of Data Engineering plays a mission-critical role in transforming data into a strategic asset and competitive advantage.

Strategic Mandate

First 12 Months

Build core data foundations:

• Design and implement enterprise data platform
• Establish regulator-grade data governance
• Support credit, finance, and regulatory reporting
• Integrate data across Egypt and Saudi operations

2436 Months

Scale platform to support hyper-growth:

• Real-time analytics and decisioning
• Advanced ML / AI use cases
• Enterprise-wide data democratization
• IPO-level reporting readiness

Long Term

Establish best-in-class digital bank data platform:

• Fully governed, scalable, auditable data infrastructure
• Support millions of customers
• Enable AI-driven banking

Core Responsibilities

A. Data Platform Architecture & Engineering

Design and operate the fintech's end-to-end data platform:

• Enterprise Data Warehouse / Lakehouse
• Streaming and batch pipelines
• Real-time event processing
• Data integration across all systems

Includes data from:

• Core systems
• Payments
• Mobile apps
• CRM
• Risk and credit engines
• Finance and GL
• Fraud systems
• External data providers (credit bureaus, payroll, open banking)

Key deliverable:

Single source of truth for the organization

B. Regulatory & Financial Data Infrastructure

Ensure platform supports:

Regulatory reporting:

Saudi Arabia:

• SAMA reporting
• Prudential returns
• Liquidity reporting
• Credit reporting

Egypt:

• CBE reporting
• FRA reporting

Financial reporting:

• IFRS reporting
• Provisioning data (IFRS 9)
• Board reporting
• Investor reporting
• IPO readiness

Critical requirement:

Full auditability and traceability

C. Credit, Risk, and Fraud Data Infrastructure

Build infrastructure powering:

• Credit decision engines
• Risk analytics
• Collections optimization
• Fraud detection
• AML monitoring

Key objective:

Real-time credit decisioning capability

D. Data Governance, Quality, and Controls

Establish regulator-grade data governance framework including:

• Data lineage
• Data ownership model
• Data quality monitoring
• Data reconciliation
• Master data management

Ensure compliance with:

• SAMA data governance framework
• CBE data governance requirements
• Internal audit expectations

E. Data Security, Privacy, and Compliance

Ensure compliance with:

Saudi Arabia:

• SAMA Cybersecurity Framework
• Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL)

Egypt:

• Data protection laws
• CBE requirements

Responsibilities include:

• Data access control
• Encryption
• Data masking
• Audit trails

F. Real-Time and Event-Driven Data Infrastructure

Build platform enabling:

• Real-time credit decisioning
• Instant fraud detection
• Customer personalization
• Real-time dashboards

G. Data Infrastructure for AI and Machine Learning

Build platform supporting:

• Feature stores
• Model training pipelines
• Model deployment pipelines

Enable teams including:

• Risk
• Fraud
• Marketing
• Customer experience

H. Team Leadership and Organization Building

Build and lead world-class data engineering team

Regulatory and Fintech Experience Requirements

Strong preference for candidates with experience in:

• Digital banks
• Consumer lending fintech
• Payments companies
• Traditional banks

Operating in regulated environments

Experience with:

• SAMA or similar regulators preferred
• CBE or emerging market regulators highly valuable

Experience supporting:

• Financial reporting
• Credit analytics
• Regulatory reporting

5. Leadership and Capability Requirements

Critical leadership traits:

• Strategic thinking
• Strong execution capability
• Hands-on technical depth
• Ability to build scalable platforms
• Strong governance mindset
• Strong collaboration with business leaders