Senior Backend Engineer - Abu Dhabi

About the Opportunity

We are hiring on behalf of a leading government transformation initiative in Abu Dhabi that is building one of the world’s most ambitious AI programs.

This organisation is creating the infrastructure, platforms, and products that will enable government entities to operate as AI-native institutions. The work spans sovereign AI infrastructure, event-driven systems, and production-grade applications that support critical public services.

This is an opportunity to work on highly impactful systems where reliability, scalability, and security are essential.

Role Overview

We are looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to design, build, and operate the backend platform that powers advanced AI and data products.

You will own core services, APIs, event pipelines, and data infrastructure that support production systems at scale. This role is backend-focused and requires deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, and database reliability.

While you do not need to be an AI specialist, you should be comfortable building the platform foundations that modern AI applications depend on.

At the senior level, you will:

• Architect and own major backend subsystems end-to-end
• Lead reliability and operational excellence initiatives
• Mentor other engineers and contribute to technical standards
• Collaborate with senior technical leadership to shape platform direction
• Use AI coding tools such as Codex, Claude Code, or similar in your daily workflow

Key Responsibilities

Backend Services & Event-Driven Architecture

• Design, build, and operate scalable backend services and APIs
• Develop event-driven systems using Kafka, Azure Service Bus, or Azure Event Hubs
• Build data pipelines, ETL processes, and shared platform abstractions
• Manage PostgreSQL, caching, and object storage infrastructure

Cloud Infrastructure & Reliability

• Deploy and operate containerized services on Kubernetes
• Build CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code using Terraform
• Manage cloud infrastructure on Azure
• Define and monitor SLOs, metrics, logging, tracing, and alerting
• Lead incident response, root-cause analysis, and postmortems

Security, Standards & Mentorship

• Implement secure engineering practices and compliance requirements
• Contribute to IAM, secrets management, network policy, and zero-trust architecture
• Mentor engineers through design reviews and code reviews

Basic Qualifications

• 7+ years of backend or platform engineering experience
• Strong expertise in distributed systems and event-driven architecture
• Proficiency in Python, Java/Kotlin, or Go
• Hands-on experience with Azure (AWS or GCP experience also valued)
• Production experience with Docker and Kubernetes
• Strong knowledge of PostgreSQL at scale
• Experience with observability, SLOs, and incident response
• Practical use of AI coding assistants such as Codex or Claude Code
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building internal developer platforms and shared tooling
• Service mesh experience (Istio, Linkerd)
• Familiarity with CQRS, event sourcing, sagas, and outbox patterns
• Experience with Redis, Elasticsearch, or OpenSearch
• Exposure to AI infrastructure such as retrieval pipelines and model serving
• Security experience in regulated environments
• Experience working in government, defense, financial services, or similar sectors

Technology Stack

• Languages: Python, Java, Kotlin, Go
• APIs: REST, gRPC, WebSockets, SSE
• Event Streaming: Kafka, Azure Service Bus, Azure Event Hubs
• Data: PostgreSQL, Redis, DocumentDB, Azure Blob Storage
• Infrastructure: Azure, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform
• Observability: Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry
• Security: Entra ID, RBAC, Secrets Management, Zero Trust
• AI Development: Codex, Claude Code, OpenCode

What We’re Looking For

You are an engineer who:

• Takes full ownership from design to production operations
• Builds reliable, scalable systems with strong operational discipline
• Makes evidence-based technical decisions
• Mentors others and raises the engineering bar
• Communicates clearly and proactively
• Embraces AI-native engineering practices

Why Apply?

This role offers the opportunity to work on highly consequential systems that will shape the future of AI-powered public services.

You’ll join a world-class engineering environment tackling complex challenges in backend infrastructure, distributed systems, and cloud architecture—while delivering meaningful impact at a national scale.