Engineering Manager · Building Teams & Platforms

I build |

Engineering & architecture leader with 12+ years across backend, cloud and mobile — currently leading a 15+ engineer, five-squad organization at AW Rostamani Group, turning business priorities into scalable, cost-efficient digital platforms.

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Years in engineering
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Engineers led across 5 squads
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On-time release rate
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Infrastructure costs cut
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Leading engineering,
owning outcomes.

I lead a multi-team engineering organization at AW Rostamani Group — one of the UAE's largest privately-held conglomerates — five squads, each with a dedicated team lead, serving three business units. I own the full engineering function: strategy, architecture, hiring, budget and delivery.

The path here: shipping award-winning iOS apps for the Dubai government, then leading a 15-engineer distributed team building a regulated health-intelligence platform in Vienna, then owning technical direction for an AI/IoT startup — three countries, four industries, one constant: teams that ship predictably.

What keeps me in this work is watching engineers become leaders — the team lead who used to be the quiet senior dev, the platform that outlives its first roadmap. I'd rather build clarity and ownership than be the smartest person in the room.

Arabic — Native English — Professional 📍 Dubai, UAE

How I lead

01

Accountable teams. Clear ownership, KPIs and visible career paths — people do their best work when expectations are explicit and growth is real.

02

Clarity between product & engineering. Roadmaps aligned with the C-suite on scope, cost and timelines — no surprises, no silos.

03

Architecture for the long term. Technical judgment paired with business ownership — decisions that support platform growth, not quarterly patches.

02

A decade of shipping,
scaling & leading.

Aug 2024 — Present Dubai, UAE
AW Rostamani Group logo

Software Development Manager (Engineering Manager)

AW Rostamani Group

  • Lead a 15+ engineer organization across Dubai HQ and offshore centers — five squads, each with a dedicated team lead, serving three business units.
  • Mentor and grow the five team leads on delivery ownership, architecture and career development; built the org's KPI, career-ladder and growth-plan framework — +15% productivity and stronger retention.
  • 95% on-time release rate and +30% team velocity within two quarters through CI/CD, sprint governance, quality gates and observability.
  • Cut infrastructure & implementation costs 20% by re-architecting onto cloud-native microservices provisioned with Terraform.
  • Migrated two legacy platforms to Node.js / React / Next.js — eliminating ~70% of legacy technical debt.
Node.jsReactNext.jsReact NativeJavaGCPTerraformCI / CDFastlaneOracle ERPSalesforceTestMu AIClaude + Cursor (AI Assistance)
Nov 2022 — Aug 2024 Dubai, UAE
Kuality AI logo

Technical Lead

Kuality AI

  • Managed and mentored an 8-engineer team building AI-driven IoT solutions on Microsoft Azure; owned the full SDLC.
  • Cut development cycle time 40% by streamlining AI workflows and automating training pipelines.
  • Technical counterpart to the CEO — translating business vision into scalable product architecture; +20% conversion uplift.
  • Embedded code-review and pair-programming culture, raising code quality and accelerating cross-team knowledge transfer.
.NET CoreAngularPythonAzureDockerAI / IoTGoogle ColabCI / CD
Nov 2019 — Nov 2022 Vienna, Austria
Medicus AI logo

Team Lead

Medicus AI

  • Coached a 15-engineer distributed team building a health-intelligence platform serving European markets — running 1:1s, performance reviews and career planning across a multi-cultural team.
  • Shipped .NET Core APIs with +50% performance, 90% unit-test coverage, on Docker & Kubernetes.
  • Led mobile SDKs adopted by labs, clinics and insurers across Europe — HL7 / FHIR healthcare interoperability.
  • Halved mobile release cycle time with Fastlane-based CI/CD, enabling weekly releases.
.NET CoreC++SwiftKotlinKubernetesHL7 / FHIRSQL & NoSQLFastlaneSDK Design
Jan 2017 — Nov 2019 Dubai, UAE
Medicus AI logo

Senior iOS Engineer

Medicus AI

  • Co-developed the Gesundheitscloud SDK for the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) — a major German health-data platform — and the Medicus iOS app.
  • Architected a C++ Core SDK for cross-platform robustness; revamped legacy iOS software to 2× performance.
  • Mentored 5 mobile developers on iOS architecture and Apple platform best practices.
iOSSwiftC++SDK DesignHL7 / FHIR
Jan 2015 — Mar 2018 Dubai, UAE
CloudAppers logo

iOS Engineer

CloudAppers

  • Delivered 4 production iOS applications — including the award-winning RTA Dubai and Visit Abu Dhabi 4 apps.
  • Both recognized at the 2017 M-Government Service Awards; mentored junior engineers on clean architecture.
iOSSwiftObjective-C
03

Selected work,
measurable impact.

AW Rostamani Group logo

Case study · AW Rostamani Group

Replatforming a conglomerate's digital estate

The problem

Two legacy platforms carried ~70% of the technical debt and were blocking the product roadmap across three business units, while infrastructure costs kept climbing.

My call

Stop patching — re-architect onto a cloud-native, multi-tenant microservices foundation (Node.js, React, Next.js on GCP, Terraform-provisioned), and restructure 15+ engineers into five squads with dedicated leads.

The complexity

Live operations for After Sales, Sales and CPO couldn't stop; Oracle ERP/Fusion integrations; onshore and offshore delivery centers moving in step.

The result

20% lower infrastructure & implementation costs, ~70% of legacy debt eliminated, 95% on-time releases and +30% velocity within two quarters.

Medicus AI logo

Case study · Medicus AI, Vienna

Scaling a regulated health platform across Europe

The problem

A health-intelligence product needed to serve labs, clinics and insurers across European markets — demanding faster, safer releases than the platform could sustain.

My call

Standardize on containerized .NET Core services (Docker, Kubernetes), enforce unit-testing standards, automate mobile releases with Fastlane CI/CD, and build partner SDKs on HL7/FHIR.

The complexity

A 15-engineer, multi-cultural distributed team; healthcare compliance and interoperability standards; SDKs consumed by third-party partners who couldn't absorb breakage.

The result

+50% API performance, 90% test coverage, release cycle halved to weekly — SDKs adopted by partners across Europe. medicus.ai ↗

▣ 🏆 3× awarded

Government · Mobility

RTA Dubai

The official app of Dubai's Roads & Transport Authority — journeys, top-ups and smart services for millions of residents. Best Transportation App at the 2017 M-Government Awards and a two-time Sheikh Hamdan Award winner.

iOSSwiftSmart Services
View on the App Store ↗
◉ 🏆 M-Gov 2017

Government · Tourism

Visit Abu Dhabi 4

Abu Dhabi's official tourism companion — attractions, itineraries and events for visitors exploring the emirate. Named Best Tourism Mobile App at the 2017 M-Government Service Awards.

iOSObjective-CMaps
visitabudhabi.ae ↗
⬢

HealthTech · SDK

Gesundheitscloud SDK

Co-developed the iOS SDK for Gesundheitscloud, the Hasso Plattner Institute's (HPI) personal health-data platform — secure, privacy-first health records infrastructure — alongside a C++ core SDK for cross-platform robustness.

iOSSwiftC++ Core
hpi.de ↗
✦

Independent · End-to-end

ENOC & ICRC Systems

Emergency Management System for ENOC, and the WatHab course-management platform with its companion mobile app for the ICRC — both delivered end-to-end as an independent engineer.

.NET CoreXamarinReact NativeAngular
Delivered for
04

Full-stack judgment,
leadership depth.

/ Leadership & Strategy

Engineering ManagementTeam Building & ScalingCross-Platform Team Leadership Career FrameworksMentoring Tech LeadsRoadmap & Budget Agile & OKR ExecutionStakeholder ManagementTechnical Due Diligence Jira & Confluence

/ Architecture

MicroservicesAPI-first / RESTEvent-Driven (RabbitMQ) Distributed SystemsPlatform ModernizationHL7 / FHIR AI & IoT PlatformsArchitecture Governance

/ Cloud & DevOps

AzureGCPDockerKubernetesTerraform CI / CDFastlaneSentrySonarQubeFirebase SQL & NoSQL

/ Hands-on Stack

.NET CoreC#Node.jsJavaKotlinPython ReactNext.jsAngulariOS / SwiftReact Native FlutterC++ClaudeCursor
05

AI-assisted engineering,
human-led delivery.

I treat AI as an engineering capability, not a gimmick — something you operationalize across squads with the same discipline as CI/CD: tooling, guardrails and quality gates, so it raises the bar instead of just the speed.

In daily development

Claude and Cursor are embedded in my squads' workflow at AW Rostamani — code generation, refactoring and review support across backend, web and mobile, behind the same code-quality gates as any human-written change.

With guardrails, not vibes

Every AI-assisted change goes through the same review, tests and quality gates as any other. The tools accelerate the work — the engineer stays accountable for what ships.

As a leadership practice

Bringing AI-assisted development into the organization was a leadership decision: choosing the tools, setting the guardrails, and coaching engineers to use them well across all five squads.

ClaudeCursorAI Code ReviewQuality GatesTeam Enablement
06

Recognized
along the way.

🏆

Best Transportation Mobile App

M-Government Service Awards 2017 — RTA Dubai app

🏆

Best Tourism Mobile App

M-Government Service Awards 2017 — Visit Abu Dhabi 4 app

🥇

Sheikh Hamdan Award — Best App

Awarded twice for the RTA Dubai application

🎓

Graduated 3rd in Class

B.Sc. Computer Software Engineering — Arab International University, 2010–2015

Next chapter: Head of Engineering

Let's build something
worth shipping.

hisham@alkassar.me
View CV ↗ ✦ linkedin.com/in/hisham-alkassar ✦ Dubai, UAE