Role overview

As a Staff Engineer on the Foundations squad at Lean Technologies, you’ll shape the platform infrastructure that enables the company’s AI ambitions and supports engineers across the organization. Lean is the leading financial infrastructure provider in the Middle East, trusted by over 350 clients and backed by major investors including General Catalyst and Sequoia. The Foundations squad owns the shared libraries, developer infrastructure, and systems that other teams depend on daily.

Key responsibilities

Drive architectural decisions for the Foundations squad, setting direction on system design that balances robustness, reliability, and pragmatism while defending those decisions clearly.
Serve as the technical voice of the team externally, building relationships with other Staff Engineers and Engineering Managers across the organization and contributing to Lean’s technical advisory group.
Own and evolve the team’s shared libraries and platform components, including Commons, that the broader engineering organization depends on.
Identify operational friction within the team and champion improvements to processes and service hygiene, driving change without formal authority.
Lead by example on operational excellence, treating observability, alerting, SLOs, and incident response as core engineering concerns.
Maintain informed, opinionated perspective on AI and agentic systems, staying current with industry developments and maintaining high standards as the space evolves.
Mentor and coach junior engineers, investing in their growth as a meaningful part of your role.

Requirements

Staff Engineer level experience or equivalent, with demonstrated ability to lead technically without formal hierarchy.
Habitual use of AI-assisted development tools as a natural part of your daily workflow for writing, reviewing, and reasoning about code.
Deep backend engineering experience with distributed systems, APIs, and reliability at scale.
Strong proficiency in Java and Spring Boot, which form the company’s core technology stack.
Strong system design and architectural judgment, with the ability to form opinionated, defensible positions while remaining intellectually honest when presented with better evidence.
Active service ownership mindset where observability, alerting, SLOs, and incident response are part of your responsibility.
Ability to lead and influence through credibility rather than title, and strong communication skills across both technical and strategic conversations.
Genuine investment in mentoring and growing junior engineers as part of your approach to leadership.

What makes this role worth considering

You’ll be building financial infrastructure for the Middle East and North Africa region, working on systems that process billions of dollars and connect millions of accounts. Lean offers competitive salaries, private healthcare, flexible office hours, and meaningful equity stakes for all team members to ensure long-term alignment with the company’s mission.

How to apply

Use the Apply button to view the official job posting and submit your application on Lean Technologies Careers: Jobs in Dubai & Riyadh (2026)'s careers site.

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