Salla
Head of Engineering (Payment / Fintech)
- Permanent
- Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
- Experience 5 - 10 yrs
- Urgent
Job overview
Date posted
29/09/2025
Location
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Salary
SAR 30,000 - 40,000 per month
Compensation
Comprehensive package
Experience
5 - 10 yrs
Seniority
Senior Manager
Qualification
Bachelors degree
Expiration date
13/11/2025
Job description
The Head of Engineering (Payment/Fintech) leads the development, optimization, and secure operation of payment processing systems, including fraud detection and payout systems, with a mandate to improve payment acceptance rates, safeguard transactions, and maintain optimal platform performance. The role sets strategic technical direction, establishes high engineering standards for secure, scalable, and efficient payment and fraud detection systems (compliant with PCI-DSS, AML, KYC, GDPR), and collaborates with Product, Compliance, Risk, and Finance to align technology with business needs and regulatory requirements. Responsibilities span payment infrastructure strategy, transaction performance scaling, downtime reduction, implementation and refinement of fraud detection rules and machine learning models for real-time threat detection, delivery of payout capabilities, and robust security and systems monitoring. The position oversees planning, development, and execution of payment and fraud features on time and within budget; manages multi-gateway integrations, smart routing, and tokenization to reduce failures and lift acceptance; deploys advanced monitoring for real-time tracking of transactions, fraud activity, system health, and performance metrics; and leverages analytics to predict failures and drive continuous optimization. Success is measured by payment acceptance rates, system uptime (99.9%+), fraud detection efficiency (reduced false positives with strong prevention), and customer satisfaction (NPS).
Required skills
Key responsibilities
- Establish and enforce engineering standards and best practices for secure, scalable, and efficient payment and fraud detection systems in compliance with industry regulations
- Lead and mentor cross-functional engineering teams (back-end, front-end, QA), fostering innovation, ownership, and professional growth
- Collaborate with Product, Compliance, Risk, and Finance to align payment systems, fraud protocols, and monitoring with business needs and regulatory standards
- Recruit, develop, and retain top fintech engineering talent and drive a culture of continuous learning
- Own the payment platform architecture strategy to improve transaction performance, scale for growth, and minimize downtime
- Develop and implement fraud detection rules and machine learning models to detect suspicious activity in real time while meeting KYC and AML requirements
- Plan, prioritize, and deliver payment and fraud features on time, within scope, and budget, managing resources and trade-offs
- Build and optimize payout systems to ensure timely and reliable disbursements to merchants and stakeholders
- Implement robust security controls and ensure adherence to PCI-DSS and GDPR in partnership with compliance and legal teams
- Integrate and manage multiple payment gateways, optimizing routing and redundancy to enhance acceptance and resilience
- Deploy advanced real-time monitoring for transactions, fraud events, system health, and key performance metrics; ensure rapid incident resolution
- Use analytics and data science insights to predict failures, tune fraud rules, and continuously optimize acceptance rates and platform performance
- Track and report KPIs (acceptance rate, uptime, fraud detection efficiency, customer satisfaction/NPS) and drive continuous improvement initiatives
Experience & skills
- 10+ years of experience in software engineering, including 5+ years in a leadership role within payment processing or fintech
- Extensive experience with fraud detection systems, payment gateways, and high-volume transaction platforms
- Expertise in payout systems, acceptance rate optimization, and secure transaction management
- Strong knowledge of regulatory standards including PCI-DSS, AML, and GDPR
- Hands-on experience with cloud-based infrastructure (e.g., AWS, Cloudflare) and real-time system monitoring
- Proven leadership with a track record of mentoring and scaling high-performing engineering teams
- Ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on problem solving in a fast-paced fintech environment
- Experience with fraud detection algorithms, machine learning models, and data-driven decision making is a plus