Hybrid AI/ML Engineering Manager

at Salla E-Commerce Platform

• Job title: AI/ML Engineering Manager
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Mid level, Senior
• Salary: Not specified
• Degree requirement: No Education Requirement
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Makkah, Saudi Arabia

About the role

• Founding Engineering Manager at Salla building and leading a new AI-focused team. Responsible for product innovation to maximize merchant value through AI-powered products.

Responsibilities

• Identify, scope, and prioritize AI product opportunities that directly impact merchant revenue, retention, or operational efficiency
• Develop a rolling roadmap of AI-powered experiences validated against merchant needs, market dynamics, and business impact
• Define success metrics for each initiative and kill or scale projects based on data, not momentum
• Ship your first product within the first quarter — we value velocity and learning over perfection
• Build on top of existing AI infrastructure across the department — your job is to create products, not rebuild engines
• Establish a rapid prototyping and validation cadence: concept → prototype → merchant pilot → scale or kill
• Build and develop a versatile team that blends data science, engineering, and product thinking
• Create a team culture of experimentation, merchant obsession, and fast iteration
• Partner across the AI department to leverage generative AI capabilities, recommendation signals, and platform infrastructure for new product surfaces
• Work closely with product, design, and business stakeholders to ensure AI experiences translate into merchant outcomes
• Coordinate with ML platform and operations teams for infrastructure needs without building parallel systems

Requirements

• 5+ years in engineering or ML roles, with at least 2 years managing a team that shipped
• AI/ML-powered products (not just models or infrastructure — products used by real customers)
• Track record of 0-to-1 product development: you’ve taken something from concept to production and measured its impact
• Strong product instinct — you can identify what to build, not just how to build it. You think in terms of merchant outcomes, not technical capabilities
• Hands-on technical depth in at least one of: LLM applications, recommendation systems, or ML-powered product features. You don’t need to write every line of code, but you need to make sound architectural calls and earn your team’s technical respect
• Comfort with ambiguity — you’ll define the roadmap, not inherit one
• Experience working in or building for e-commerce, marketplace, or merchant-facing
• **Strong Preference:**
• Experience with MENA markets, Arabic-language AI products, or regional commerce patterns (seasonal dynamics, WhatsApp commerce, social selling)
• Background at a high-growth technology company where you operated with startup speed and increasing scale
• Familiarity with multi-agent architectures or AI agent platforms
• Arabic language proficiency (business-level or native)