Head IT Application Development (Gen-AI)/ AI

Key responsibilities:

1. Software Delivery Leadership and Governance

• Lead and govern all phases of the SDLC: planning, design, development, testing, deployment, and ongoing improvements.
• Define, standardize, and enforce secure coding, testing, release, and documentation practices across teams.
• Ensure application delivery aligns with defined business outcomes, technical architecture, and quality standards.
• Champion Agile and DevSecOps methodologies for delivery efficiency, code quality, and maintainability.

1. AI and GenAI Development

• Lead the development of GenAI-powered applications that drive automation, decision support, and user engagement across platforms.
• Implement conversational agentic solutions, enable workflow orchestration, and embed predictive and contextual analytics into business processes.
• Ensure AI implementations follow responsible AI design principles and comply with enterprise security and compliance standards.
• Apply AI governance frameworks (e.g., ISO/IEC 42001, NIST AI RMF, OWASP LLM Top 10) in the development lifecycle.

1. Data Platform Engineering

• Oversee the design and implementation of scalable data pipelines and analytics solutions using Azure Data Factory, Microsoft Fabric, and related Azure services.
• Ensure data security, quality, lineage, and access control across development and production environments.
• Support use cases in spend analytics, supplier intelligence, and category insights through structured data engineering.

1. Enterprise Application Integration

• Define and implement secure integration patterns using APIs, ESBs, and event-driven architectures to connect with ERP, CRM, and third-party SaaS systems.
• Standardize API development, lifecycle management, and interface documentation across platforms.
• Support interoperability across client-specific and platform-level components in a multi-tenant architecture.

1. Security, Compliance, and Quality Assurance

• Embed security-by-design principles including threat modeling, SAST/DAST, API security testing, and code scanning.
• Ensure all application development meets requirements under GDPR, ISO 27001, SOC 2, OWASP, and NIST standards.
• Enforce role-based access control (RBAC), encryption protocols (TLS 1.2+, AES-256), and identity/access governance.
• Collaborate with InfoSec and Compliance to ensure continuous audit readiness and incident prevention.

1. Technical Leadership and Innovation Enablement

• Review and validate application architecture and technical solution design across projects and platforms.
• Identify emerging technologies relevant digital roadmap and lead hands-on evaluation and prototyping.
• Contribute to platform-wide improvements by promoting reusability, modularity, and standardization.

1. Team Management and Capability Development

• Manage and mentor a distributed team of developers, data engineers, and solution architects.
• Define role-based competencies and ensure continuous development of technical skills in cloud, AI, and integration technologies.
• Ensure resource allocation and delivery capacity align with program demands and client-specific implementation schedules.
• Promote a high-performance culture focused on accountability, quality, and delivery excellence.

1. Documentation and Evaluation

• Oversee the creation of development documentation, including architecture diagrams, delivery roadmaps, and implementation plans.
• Review technical designs and deployment plans to ensure alignment with requirements, coding standards, and platform architecture.
• Define and apply evaluation criteria to assess vendor and partner proposals for technical fit, scalability, and compliance.

1. Collaboration and Communication

• Represent the application development function in cross-functional forums, aligning delivery priorities with business and technology objectives.
• Collaborate with architecture, product, and infrastructure teams to ensure seamless integratihip and external partners.on and end-to-end solution delivery.
• Communicate development strategies, risks, and technical decisions clearly to stakeholders, including senior leadership and external partners.

Requirements:

We are looking for candidates with:

• 15+ years of experience in enterprise software development, including 5+ years in a senior leadership or delivery management role.
• Proven ability to lead distributed development teams across multiple projects, platforms, and business domains.
• Strategic mindset with a track record of aligning technical delivery to business outcomes, particularly within multi-client platforms and indirect procurement contexts.
• Strong grasp of enterprise architecture principles and experience facilitating discovery workshops and collaborative solution design sessions with business and IT stakeholders.
• Hands-on expertise in Microsoft Azure (App Services, Azure DevOps, Data Factory, Azure Foundry), with a strong understanding of cloud-native development, DevSecOps, and secure SDLC practices.