INTRODUCTION
ATOM is a leading end-to-end, integrated insurance operating system built on the latest technology stack. ATOM enables MGAs, Brokers and Insurers to automate the entire life cycle of the insurance process incorporating not only insurance underwriting and claims handling but also all associated support and corporate activities.
Based in one of the most innovative areas of Dubai, the DIFC Innovation Hub, a dynamic group of more than 40 passionate and dedicated insurance and software professionals are on a mission to take the specialty insurance industry to the next level.
We are looking for an experienced Principal Data & AI to join our growing team!
ROLE SUMMARY
As Principal Data & AI you will provide leadership for critical initiatives covering the end-to-end data development lifecycle for data ingestion, cleansing, validation, transformation, curation and presentation. You will be leading a talented team of data engineers delivering high-impact, secure data and AI solutions to achieve the ambitious goals of ATOM's customers and stakeholders.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Architecture & Data Platform
- Design and evolve the cloud data architecture to address the rapidly changing needs of the business.
- Define and implement data modelling standards (dimensional models, star/snowflake schemas, canonical data models) to support reporting, analytics, and AI/ML use cases.
- Handson Engineering & Delivery
- Develop, test, and maintain robust ETL/ELT pipelines to ingest and transform data from multiple sources into the data lake and data marts.
- Implement robust web scraping solutions
- Optimise performance and cost of data workloads (partitioning, compression, query tuning, etc).
- Analytics, BI, ML & AI Enablement
- Partner with data scientists, ML engineers, and analytics teams to productionise ML/AI and LLM-based solutions, ensuring reliable data pipelines and feature stores.
- Enable selfservice reporting and BI by exposing curated, welldocumented datasets for dashboards and analytical tools.
- Governance, Quality, and Security
- Define and enforce data governance, data quality, and metadata management practices across the platform.
- Implement and oversee security best practices (IAM roles and policies, encryption at rest and in transit, row/columnlevel security, auditing and monitoring).
- Leadership, Mentoring & Best Practices
- Lead and mentor a team of data engineers, setting standards for coding, testing, documentation, code review, and DevOps/CICD practices.
- Conduct regular code reviews, provide technical guidance, and drive adoption of engineering best practices (clean code, reusable components, version control, testing, observability).
- Collaboration & Stakeholder Management
- Work closely with product, engineering, and business stakeholders to understand data requirements and translate them into scalable technical solutions.
- Communicate technical concepts clearly to both technical and nontechnical audiences, supporting planning, estimation, and roadmap definition.
KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS
- Strong expertise in SAP HANA / SAP HANA Cloud data modelling, XS Engine, Calculation Views, SDI/SDA, etc.
- Handson experience as a data engineer with focus on Snowflake, Databricks, Azure, GCP and/or AWS platforms.
- Excellent programming skills in Python, SQL and other relevant languages.
- Proven experience in developing ETL/ELT pipelines using various technologies, including but not limited to dbt, Informatica, Talend, AWS Glue, Python, SQL, etc.
- Experience with analytical frontend tools (e.g. Power BI, Tableau, Spotfire, MicroStrategy, SAP Analytics Cloud).
- Expertise in Large Language Models, generative AI, and intelligent agents.
- Experience leading technical teams, setting engineering standards, and mentoring others.
- A bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, Statistics, Mathematics, or a related fieldor equivalent practical experience.
- A collaborative, proactive problem solver with strong communication skills and the ability to work effectively across diverse teams.
- Minimum 10 years of experience in a similar role.
