E-Commerce Technical Lead

About This Role

Role Overview

This individual is responsible for designing, building, and managing e-commerce platforms. This is a hands-on engineering leadership role where the person must be capable of writing production code on Day 1 while simultaneously managing external contractors and planning the platform's technical architecture.

The technician translates the specifications into deployed, tested, production-grade software. They are accountable for platform uptime, performance, security, and the technical delivery of every milestone. Critically, this person must have previously shipped a live consumer-facing e-commerce platform.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Architecture & Technical Design

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Design the full technical architecture for B2C platforms on a shared backend with distinct consumer-facing experiences.

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Design and build the Central Inventory System with a real-time stock allocation algorithm that routes each incoming SKU to the appropriate storefront based on sales velocity, price point, margin profile, and brand positioning rules.

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Define and maintain the technology stack, development toolchain, CI/CD pipeline, hosting infrastructure, and security architecture across all three platforms.

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Produce and maintain the technical architecture documentation: system diagrams, API specifications, data model, and infrastructure runbooks.

Drop Engine & Live Commerce Build

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Build the Drop Engine — the commercial heart of the e-commerce platform(s).

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Implement real-time inventory locking during live commerce events.

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Build the community design vote interface: submission form, voting mechanics, winner calculation logic, and production trigger API.

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Implement live commerce streaming integration — connecting the 60-minute live event to the storefront checkout with seamless cart and payment handoff.

Arabic RTL, Localisation & Regional UX

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Implement full Arabic right-to-left (RTL) rendering from Sprint 1 — not as a post-launch addition. All layouts, navigation elements, form fields, payment flows, and content modules must be RTL-native.

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Implement multi-currency pricing in USD/AED-equivalent across all platforms, with locale-appropriate display for TRY, NGN, and EGP markets.

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Ensure all platform pages meet Core Web Vitals performance benchmarks when loaded from UAE, KSA, and Turkey — CDN configuration and image optimisation are non-negotiable.

Payment Gateway Integration

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Integrate and test the complete Gulf and regional payment stack: STC Pay, Mada, Fawry, M-Pesa, Tabby (BNPL), Tamara (BNPL), Apple Pay, Google Pay, and standard Visa/Mastercard card rails.

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Implement UAE and KSA-compliant VAT handling, consumer data localization, and transaction-level audit logging.

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Build the WhatsApp Business API integration, enabling high-value customers to complete purchases via WhatsApp with concierge support.

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Implement full refund and returns processing flows.

Logistics & Third-Party API Integrations

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Integrate last-mile logistics partner APIs for real-time order tracking across all hubs.

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Build the automated inventory push from the Central Inventory System: trigger conditions when a SKU reaches the 60-day velocity threshold, pricing rule application (30–60% markdown), and listing creation on the Outlet storefront.

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Implement the QR-coded certificate of authenticity generation and verification system for all licensed items.

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Build the blockchain provenance recording integration.

Mobile App & Affiliate Infrastructure

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Build and deploy iOS and Android mobile apps — React Native preferred — targeting App Store and Google Play.

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Build the influencer affiliate dashboard: referral link generation, conversion tracking, 25% commission calculation, and payout reporting .

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Implement the B2B brand data analytics dashboard: licensor-facing view of consumer behaviour data, SKU performance metrics, and demographic breakdowns.

Engineering Team Management

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Manage all contracted developers, freelancers, and development agencies engaged.

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Define and enforce coding standards, test coverage requirements (minimum 80% on core commerce flows), and incident response procedures.

Experience & Requirements

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8–12 years of software engineering experience, with minimum 3 years in a technical lead or engineering manager role.

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Must have personally shipped a consumer-facing e-commerce or marketplace platform — not managed a vendor, not consulted; built and deployed a live system that handled real customer transactions.

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Deep hands-on Shopify Plus experience: Storefront API, Admin API, custom app development, Shopify Functions, and headless commerce implementation.

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Demonstrated experience integrating MENA payment gateways — STC Pay, Mada, Tabby, or Tamara — or equivalent complexity emerging market payment integration.

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Arabic RTL front-end development experience — this is non-negotiable given the platform's primary language.

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Experience building real-time commerce mechanics: countdown timers, inventory locking under concurrent load, live event queue management.

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React / Next.js front-end expertise. Node.js or comparable backend. React Native for mobile.

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Experience managing third-party developers, freelancers, or development agencies — with accountability for their output.

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E-commerce performance optimisation experience: CDN configuration, image pipelines, Core Web Vitals for MENA markets.

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Comfortable writing production code individually while simultaneously managing others — this is a player-manager role at pre-seed stage.