Senior Engineering Manager - Defense

About Scale AI

Scale AI's rapidly expanding Global Public Sector team focuses on leveraging artificial intelligence to tackle significant challenges faced by governments worldwide. Our primary initiatives include creating custom AI solutions impacting millions of individuals, generating premium training datasets for national large language models, and providing advisory and upskilling services to amplify AI's positive influence.

As our AI applications evolve from experimental stages into fully operational systems, we invest heavily in the infrastructure and personnel that ensure these tools are reliable, secure, and trusted by governmental partners.

We aren’t just delivering AI technologies; we are enabling government agencies to revolutionize their operations for improved citizen services using state-of-the-art tools. We invite passionate professionals eager to shape AI’s future impact in public service to join our founding team.

Role Overview

We seek a highly skilled and strategic Senior Manager of Defense Engineering to lead and expand our engineering efforts across the Middle East, with a focus on defense-related projects. This senior technical leader will guide the delivery of tailored AI applications for defense and national security clients by integrating deep domain expertise in defense with advanced AI and full stack engineering.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the regional engineering team focusing on defense and public sector initiatives.
• Design, develop, and enhance backend services powering advanced AI applications, emphasizing AI agents, evaluation tools, and automation frameworks.
• Oversee comprehensive full stack engineering processes including architecture, testing, debugging, and deployment.
• Act as the principal technical authority on defense projects, ensuring adherence to mission-critical performance and security standards.
• Architect and deploy AI agent frameworks and APIs tailored to defense and government workflows.
• Collaborate fluidly with internal engineering teams and external defense/government stakeholders.
• Manage the entire product lifecycle from ideation through to production while balancing speed and quality.
• Conduct rapid high-quality experiments and MVP releases to foster engagement with defense clients.
• Shape the engineering team’s culture, reinforcing shared values and efficient processes.
• Mentor and inspire engineers to develop a technically strong and mission-aligned team.
• Work cross-functionally to define and implement new product features specific to defense needs.

Qualifications and Experience

• Minimum 10 years in software engineering, with a strong focus on backend systems and full stack development.
• At least 5 years managing engineering teams, proven ability to build and lead productive, mission-focused teams.
• Substantial domain expertise in defense, understanding defense operations, security priorities, regulations, and compliance requirements.
• Proven experience in AI and machine learning, including AI agents, large language model applications, and agentic architectures.
• Hands-on skills in API design, development, and integration in both cloud and on-premises environments, particularly with AI/ML APIs and defense/government platforms.
• Strong full stack capabilities encompassing backend services, APIs, data pipelines, and frontend components.
• Track record of delivering high-quality products at scale in fast-paced, high-stakes contexts, preferably in government or defense sectors.
• Ability to translate complex defense mission requirements into scalable and practical engineering solutions.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and independent working skills, as well as teamwork within international, cross-functional settings.
• Experience working in or with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is highly desirable; Arabic proficiency is an advantage.

Additional Information

Applicants should note a mandatory 90-day waiting period for re-application to this role to ensure fairness.

Scale AI is committed to diversity and inclusivity, welcoming applications from all qualified individuals regardless of race, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, or veteran status. We provide reasonable accommodations upon request and adhere strictly to equal opportunity and pay transparency laws.

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