Engineering Manager (WC3 Squad Lead)

Reports to: VP Engineering

About WakeCap

WakeCap builds the connected-worker platform for large-scale construction and industrial sites. Our hardware (smart helmets, anchors, gateways) feeds a real-time SaaS platform that gives site teams worker location, safety compliance, automated mustering, and productivity analytics. We operate across major projects in the GCC.

About the Role

WC3 is our 3.0 platform: the SaaS core connecting IoT hardware to customer workflows. It is pre-launch and in active formation, modeled on ontology-driven, pipeline-first patterns, and built to serve AI agents as first-class users alongside humans.

As WC3 Squad Lead, you own the platform end to end. You set the architecture, build and lead the team, and hold the engineering quality bar. You lead a small, senior group with high autonomy and direct product impact.

What You'll Own

- Architecture across the platform: data ontology and semantic layer, pipelines and lineage, streaming backbone, developer SDK and API surface, authorization and governance, application layer, and DevOps.

- Hiring end to end: define the bar, run the process, make the decisions.

- Team performance and culture: clear expectations, direct feedback, meaningful reviews, decisive action when the bar is not met.

- The AIP layer: agent runtime, MCP surface, and AI-powered features, behind an accepted architecture decision.

- Delivery: sprint planning, agile ceremonies, and translating the roadmap into shippable increments with Product.

What We're Looking For

- 10+ years in software engineering, with clear progression from senior IC to engineering leadership.

- 5+ years directly managing engineers: leading teams, owning hiring, running performance cycles. Leading a project is not the same as leading a team.

- Proven design and delivery of scalable, multi-tenant SaaS or large-scale distributed systems in production, including the hard parts (incidents, migrations, scaling failures).

- Experience with ontology-driven, governed data platforms: Palantir Foundry/AIP, Databricks Unity Catalog, or equivalent. Direct Foundry/AIP experience is heavily weighted. What matters most is that you think in the patterns: ontologies, pipelines, lineage, governed SDK surfaces, and an application layer on top.

- Strong in C#/.NET, with real fluency across other backends (Go, Python, Java, Node.js). Opinionated on trade-offs, not attached to one stack.

- Frontend depth in TypeScript with a modern framework; API design (REST/GraphQL); databases across relational, time-series, and vector stores; cloud (GCP and/or AWS), Docker/Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD.

- LLM integration patterns: RAG, tool/function calling, MCP serving, agent runtime design, output evaluation.

- Daily hands-on use of Claude Code and Codex in real engineering work, with grounded awareness of the current AI model landscape.

- Exceptional written and spoken English. This is a hard requirement.

Nice-to-Have

- Direct hands-on Foundry/AIP builds.

- Agentic frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, AutoGen) and multi-agent orchestration.

- IoT or connected-device data ingestion.

- Enterprise integrations (SSO, ERP/PM systems such as Oracle or Procore).

- Construction, industrial, or field-operations software.

- KSA/CST data residency, ISO 27001, SOC 2.

What We Offer

- Competitive salary, performance bonus, and equity.

- High-autonomy role building a platform from the ground up, your name on the architecture.

- Relocation support for candidates joining from outside KSA.

- Health insurance, annual flights, and standard WakeCap benefits.