Tech Director (Head of Engineering) Globant — Riyadh, KSA

Location:

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (on-site). Alternative locations: Jordan, Lebanon, UAE, Egypt — with regular travel to Riyadh required.

Reports to:

VP of Technology:

Direct scope: 50+ engineers across back end and front end disciplines

Role type:

New role | Permanent | Leadership/Strategy

About the Role

This is a senior engineering leadership position responsible for the strategic direction, delivery performance, and technical maturity of Globant's software engineering function in the MENA region. The Head of Engineering will own the engineering roadmap, drive AI adoption, establish engineering culture and standards, and lead a growing organisation of 50+ engineers across back end and front end teams.

Key Priorities

Improve delivery velocity — Identify and remove bottlenecks across the engineering lifecycle. Establish metrics, streamline release processes, and improve predictability of delivery across teams.

Drive AI adoption across engineering — Define and execute a strategy for embedding AI into engineering workflows, tooling, and product development. Champion the use of AI-assisted development, testing, and operations to accelerate output and quality.

Build engineering culture and processes — Establish engineering standards, governance, and ways of working. Improve tooling, development processes, and code standards across teams. Create a culture of ownership, technical excellence, and continuous improvement. Introduce career frameworks, knowledge sharing, and communities of practice.

Tackle technical debt and platform modernisation — Assess the current estate, prioritise remediation, and lead modernisation efforts aligned with long-term architectural goals. Balance delivery demands with sustainable engineering practices.

Scale the engineering organisation — Partner with talent acquisition to grow the team in line with business demand. Build a hiring strategy across Riyadh and alternative locations (Jordan, Lebanon, UAE, Egypt), ensuring quality and cultural alignment.

Key Responsibilities

Set the technical vision and engineering strategy aligned with business objectives

Lead and develop engineering managers, SMEs, and senior engineers across all disciplines

Own engineering delivery performance, reporting, and continuous improvement

Collaborate closely with architecture, cybersecurity, product, delivery, design, QA, data, and Dev Sec Ops/platform disciplines to ensure alignment and cohesive outcomes across the engineering organisation

Represent engineering in senior leadership forums and client engagements

Manage stakeholder relationships across the organisation and with external partners

Champion modern engineering practices including Dev Sec Ops, CI/CD, observability, and automation

Ensure compliance with security, governance, and regulatory requirements

Technical Landscape

The role provides strategic oversight across the following technology stack. Hands-on coding is not expected, but a strong understanding of the technologies in use and the ability to engage credibly with technical teams is required.

Back End:

NodeJS, Adobe Experience Manager, Apigee, RESTful APIs, microservices architecture, event-driven architecture, SQL and NoSQL databases, OAuth/JWT, message queuing and async processing.

Front End:

Flutter, Svelte, HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript/TypeScript, Android and iOS native development, component-based architecture, micro frontend patterns, progressive web applications, accessibility (WCAG), state management.

AI & Emerging Tech:

AI-assisted development tooling, Agentic AI, LLMOps, AI integration into engineering workflows, evaluation of emerging AI/ML technologies for engineering productivity.

Requirements

Significant experience leading engineering organisations of 50+ in a Tech/SaaS environment

Proven track record of improving delivery velocity and engineering maturity at scale

Experience introducing AI tooling and practices into engineering teams

Strong understanding of back end and front end technologies — able to engage credibly with engineering teams and contribute to technical discussions

Demonstrated ability to work effectively across disciplines including architecture, cybersecurity, product, delivery, design, and QA

Experience building engineering teams across multiple geographies, ideally in the MENA region

Strong stakeholder management and communication skills with senior/executive audiences

Experience with engineering governance, standards, and platform modernisation

Track record of building engineering culture, career frameworks, and communities of practice

Desirable

Experience in a consulting or digital services environment

Experience working with Saudi Arabia's digital transformation landscape (e.g. Vision 2030 aligned programmes)