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Engineering Design Director

Location: Dubai
Salary: AED 25,000 - 30,000
Job Code: 097/001/530
Industry: Lighting / Building Technologies
Reports To: Chief Executive Officer
Department: Engineering & Product Design
Role Level: Director
Travel: UAE, Saudi Arabia, export markets, customer/project sites, supplier/manufacturing locations, and regional offices

Job Brief:

Our client is seeking an experienced Engineering Design Director to lead the company’s technical solution, product, design, and estimation capability. The role ensures that customer requirements are translated into compliant, commercially viable, manufacturable, and deliverable solutions.

The Engineering Design Director will lead solution engineering, product specialization, lighting and systems design, technical documentation, and estimation across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and export markets. The role provides the technical governance that connects Pre-Sales, quotation, order conversion, product creation, sourcing, project handover, and downstream execution support.

The role requires a strong balance of design quality, technical compliance, customer value, quotation speed, estimate accuracy, product standardization, bespoke innovation, cost and margin awareness, resource capacity, and reliable cross-functional handover.

Job Responsibilities:

  • Lead the complete Engineering & Products Design organization and ensure consistent technical standards and resource deployment across regions.
  • Lead the Engineering & Solutions function covering Bespoke Solutions, Standard Solutions, Home Automation, Audiovisual, and Building Management Systems.
  • Lead the Design function across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and export markets.
  • Lead the Estimation function across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and export markets.
  • Coordinate technically with Sales, Supply Chain & Pricing, Finance, Customer Services Operations, regional teams, suppliers, manufacturers, consultants, and customers.
  • Govern standard and bespoke solution development, design, estimation, technical product information, and formal handover content.
  • Develop the department strategy in alignment with company objectives, market needs, regional growth, and Chief Executive Officer direction.
  • Establish an integrated operating model for solution engineering, product specialization, design, estimation, technical documentation, and support.
  • Translate business forecasts and pipeline requirements into capacity, capability, and priority plans.
  • Define when work should use a standard solution, configured solution, bespoke solution, new product, or integrated technology approach.
  • Maintain a balanced focus on technical quality, response time, commercial viability, scalability, and customer value.
  • Ensure qualified enquiries receive the appropriate level of technical review and solution support.
  • Define the minimum information required from Sales before design, product selection, solution development, or estimation begins.
  • Assign work according to territory, complexity, specialization, workload, and customer priority.
  • Prevent unqualified, incomplete, or contradictory requests from consuming technical capacity without appropriate review.
  • Escalate material scope, feasibility, compliance, capacity, or technical-risk concerns before quotation.
  • Lead the development of technically sound and commercially practical solutions for customer and project requirements.
  • Ensure solution concepts address function, performance, interface, installation, maintainability, compliance, and life-cycle considerations.
  • Coordinate multidisciplinary solutions involving lighting, controls, home automation, audiovisual systems, building management systems, and related integration where applicable.
  • Ensure technical assumptions, limitations, exclusions, dependencies, and required customer decisions are documented.
  • Provide governance for value engineering without compromising mandatory performance or quality requirements.
  • Maintain clear ownership of standard solutions, bespoke solutions, and integrated technology product knowledge.
  • Develop reusable standard solutions and product-selection guidance to improve consistency and speed.
  • Govern bespoke solution development from concept through design, pricing input, supplier/manufacturing feasibility, and handover.
  • Ensure new products and solutions receive appropriate technical identification, specification, documentation, and life-cycle ownership.
  • Coordinate with Supply Chain & Pricing on SKU creation, pricing, sourcing feasibility, and product-master completeness.
  • Establish design standards, calculation methods, drawing requirements, review controls, and issue-status conventions.
  • Ensure design output is technically correct, coordinated, constructible, and appropriate to the approved project stage.
  • Maintain consistent design quality across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and export markets.
  • Ensure design changes, revisions, assumptions, and customer/consultant comments are controlled and traceable.
  • Monitor design workload, turnaround, quality, and rework through the Design Manager and regional Team Leaders.
  • Ensure estimation is based on the approved solution, complete quantities, controlled product data, and the current Master List Price.
  • Establish consistent methods for Bills of Quantity, take-off, exclusions, assumptions, option pricing, and quotation-support documentation.
  • Ensure new products or missing price data are referred to Supply Chain & Pricing before quotation completion.
  • Review estimate accuracy, turnaround, rework, and variance from quotation to confirmed order.
  • Maintain technical and estimating independence while supporting Sales management’s quotation and commercial approval responsibility.
  • Define technical review levels according to solution complexity, novelty, risk, value, and customer requirements.
  • Ensure technical submissions, calculations, drawings, schedules, specifications, and product selections are reviewed by competent authorized personnel.
  • Approve or delegate technical approval within established authority.
  • Ensure unresolved technical deviations are clearly identified before quotation, order acceptance, sourcing, or execution.
  • Escalate material technical, compliance, warranty, product, or liability risks to senior management and relevant functions.
  • Provide Sales and Estimation with accurate technical scope, quantities, product selection, assumptions, exclusions, and delivery/manufacturing dependencies.
  • Support commercial review of major, bespoke, integrated, or high-risk proposals.
  • Identify scope gaps, unpriced technical requirements, design uncertainty, and change exposure that may affect margin or customer commitment.
  • Support customer, consultant, contractor, and supplier clarification meetings where technical leadership is required.
  • Maintain the distinction between technical approval and Sales, Finance, or management commercial authority.
  • Ensure technical product information required for product-master and SKU creation is complete and controlled.
  • Coordinate with Pricing and Procurement on cost, supplier, manufacturing, lead-time, and product-data requirements.
  • Ensure unsupported or incomplete technical data is not released into quotation or procurement processes.
  • Support validation of substitutions, alternates, new suppliers, and product changes.
  • Maintain clarity between technical product ownership and commercial pricing ownership.
  • Ensure confirmed customer orders are reviewed against the approved technical solution, quotation, drawings, specifications, and exclusions.
  • Identify order deviations, unresolved technical clarifications, and required changes before handover.
  • Provide controlled technical documents and relevant design, product, quantity, interface, testing, installation, and acceptance information to Supply Chain & Pricing and Customer Services Operations.
  • Participate in structured handovers for bespoke, complex, strategic, or high-risk orders.
  • Maintain ownership of unresolved technical actions until formally accepted by the receiving function.
  • Provide controlled technical clarification during sourcing, manufacturing, project preparation, installation, testing, and customer acceptance where required.
  • Review proposed technical substitutions or changes before implementation.
  • Ensure execution feedback, non-conformities, lessons learned, and field performance inform future design and product decisions.
  • Prevent uncontrolled scope or design changes from bypassing commercial and documentation controls.
  • Establish technical quality controls appropriate to the company’s products, designs, solutions, and project obligations.
  • Maintain awareness of applicable customer specifications, consultant requirements, product standards, and approved internal criteria.
  • Coordinate technical requirements with Supplier Quality and Procurement.
  • Lead root-cause reviews of significant design, product, estimation, or technical failures.
  • Maintain a visible register of major technical risks, corrective actions, and recurring issues.
  • Evaluate new products, technologies, suppliers, solution categories, and integration opportunities relevant to company strategy.
  • Develop structured business and technical recommendations for product adoption, standardization, development, or retirement.
  • Convert repeated bespoke requirements into reusable standard solutions where commercially and technically appropriate.
  • Promote practical innovation that improves customer value, differentiation, margin, reliability, or delivery speed.
  • Avoid uncontrolled portfolio expansion that creates unsupported technical, inventory, warranty, or training exposure.
  • Represent the company in senior technical discussions with customers, consultants, architects, contractors, system integrators, suppliers, and manufacturing partners.
  • Build confidence through clear technical communication, evidence, responsiveness, and professional judgement.
  • Resolve major technical disagreements through documented evaluation and controlled decision-making.
  • Maintain constructive collaboration with Sales while preserving technical integrity and accountability.
  • Set clear objectives, responsibilities, service expectations, and performance measures for the Engineering & Solutions Manager, Design Manager, and Estimation Manager.
  • Ensure managers cascade expectations to Product Specialists, Team Leaders, Designers, and Estimators.
  • Conduct regular capacity, quality, performance, technical-risk, and development reviews.
  • Build succession plans and competency coverage for critical product, design, engineering, estimation, and regional responsibilities.
  • Establish training, mentoring, technical review, and knowledge-management practices.
  • Promote collaboration across regions and specializations and prevent knowledge silos.
  • Report workload, response time, design status, estimate status, solution risk, technical quality, rework, resource capacity, and product-development priorities.
  • Use pipeline and forecast information to anticipate technical and estimation demand.
  • Identify recurring bottlenecks, handover gaps, data weaknesses, and avoidable rework.
  • Lead approved process, system, template, standard, and workflow improvements.
  • Provide the Chief Executive Officer with clear technical options, risks, resource implications, and recommendations.
  • Establish technical, design, product, estimation, documentation, and review standards.
  • Classify and prioritize technical work and allocate department resources.
  • Approve or delegate approval of technical solutions, designs, calculations, product selections, and estimate completeness within established authority.
  • Require correction of incomplete, unsupported, unsafe, non-compliant, or commercially exposed technical output.
  • Recommend new products, technologies, solution categories, suppliers, tools, and capability investments.
  • Approve technical substitutions or changes within delegated authority.
  • Escalate technical, product, design, quality, compliance, capacity, warranty, or liability risks.
  • Recommend recruitment, organizational, succession, development, and performance actions within the department.
  • Operate within the approved governance framework, with commercial quotation approval, customer discounts, payment terms, supplier financial commitments, and Finance clearance remaining with the applicable authorized functions.

Job Requirements:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Architectural Engineering, Building Services Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Lighting Technology, Automation, Control Systems, or a closely related technical discipline.
  • The qualification must be supported by strong practical experience in technical solutions, design, products, estimation, or engineered project delivery.
  • Master’s degree, MBA, or equivalent postgraduate technical or management qualification is preferred.
  • Professional training or certification in lighting design, engineering management, project management, building technologies, controls, automation, systems integration, or product management is preferred.
  • 10+ years of progressively responsible experience in engineering, technical solutions, product management, design, estimation, or engineered project delivery.
  • Substantial experience leading managers and multidisciplinary technical teams.
  • Demonstrated responsibility for technical standards, solution approval, resource planning, quality, risk, and senior stakeholder engagement.
  • Experience supporting B2B, project-based, specification-driven, or configurable technical solutions.
  • Proven ability to connect technical decisions with cost, margin, sourcing, delivery, installation, customer value, and business risk.
  • Lighting-industry experience is strongly preferred.
  • Senior candidates from adjacent technical sectors may be considered, including architectural lighting, electrical systems and equipment, building technologies, building automation and smart buildings, MEP systems, audiovisual and control systems, technical system integration, construction products, and project-based engineering and manufacturing.
  • Strong proficiency with design, calculation, product data, estimation, document control, ERP, and business-productivity systems relevant to the function.
  • Strong working discipline with CRM systems for qualified-opportunity inputs, technical status, estimation support, forecasting dependencies, and formal handover information.
  • Ability to use management information for workload, turnaround, quality, rework, risk, capacity, and performance control.
  • Specific software brands are secondary to strong governance, traceability, interoperability, and consistent team usage.
  • Excellent professional English is mandatory.
  • Arabic is preferred and commercially advantageous, but not mandatory.
  • Additional languages relevant to regional teams, customers, suppliers, or export markets are advantageous.
  • Willingness to travel within the UAE and to Saudi Arabia, export markets, customer and project sites, supplier/manufacturing locations, and regional offices as required.
  • Strong competencies in technical leadership, solution engineering, lighting and systems design, product management, estimation governance, technical-commercial judgement, design quality, standardization, innovation, risk management, cross-functional leadership, resource planning, team development, customer communication, decision-making, problem-solving, executive reporting, and accountability.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

  • Solution Engineering: Solution-development turnaround, first-pass technical acceptance, reusable standard-solution adoption, technical clarification and rework trend.
  • Design: On-time design output, design accuracy and first-pass approval, revision and rework rate, regional workload and capacity performance.
  • Estimation: Quotation-support turnaround, estimate accuracy, estimate rework rate, variance between estimate, quotation, and confirmed order.
  • Product and Master Data: New product and SKU technical-data turnaround, product-data completeness, duplicate or inconsistent product records, product standardization and rationalization.
  • Technical Quality and Risk: Technical non-conformities, root-cause and corrective-action closure, unresolved technical risk ageing, warranty or field issues attributable to design or product selection.
  • Commercial Support: Response to qualified opportunities, scope gaps identified before quotation, bespoke-solution margin and delivery predictability, handover completeness.
  • Team and Capability: Manager and team objective achievement, resource utilization and workload balance, critical-skill coverage and succession readiness, training and competency development.
  • Improvement and Innovation: Approved standardization initiatives, implemented process improvements, new-product or solution business contribution, reduction in repeat technical issues.
  • Specific annual numerical targets and weightings will be agreed through the company’s performance-management process.
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