At Artkai, we help mid-market and enterprise businesses modernize software, automate business processes, and build AI-driven solutions grounded in robust security and corporate governance. Powered by the synergy of senior engineering and AI, our approach delivers measurable business outcomes across every project.
Position Type: Full-Time
Duration: Permanent product and engineering ownership
Location: On-site in Dubai, UAE
Seniority: 10+ years of software engineering experience / Executive level
We are seeking an experienced Head of Backend Engineering who operates with the execution strength and operational rigor of a Senior Engineering Manager / Delivery Lead. The ideal candidate will take hands-on technical ownership of our core PHP Back-Office platform across multiple regulated entities, managing users, deposits, withdrawals, payment orchestration, transaction status integrity, and MT5 ledger integrations.
In this role, you will take over technical leadership from the Interim CTO, address core payment reconciliation gaps, enforce idempotency, optimize state machines, and ensure safe software delivery across a highly regulated financial services platform.
Key Onsite Requirement: This position requires regular, full-time physical presence on-site in Dubai to work closely with executive stakeholders and lead a multicultural team.
Core Responsibilities * Core Platform Ownership: Own and modernize the PHP back-office engine serving as the central control point between client apps, payment gateways (Praxis/PSPs), MT5 ledgers, CRM, and analytics platforms. * Transaction Integrity & Reconciliation: Eliminate payment status discrepancies across local records, PSP API responses, portal exports, and daily S3 files. Design robust idempotency, retry mechanisms, and auditing trails. * Data Flow & Reporting: Optimize data pipelines feeding AWS DMS/CDC replication into S3/Redshift for operational Metabase reporting. * Technical Transition & Leadership: Direct knowledge transfer from the Interim CTO during the probationary period, providing hands-on technical guidance, code quality standards, and risk escalation. * Regulated Delivery: Ensure system architecture adheres to strict regulatory audit trails and approval matrices across diverse legal jurisdictions.
Candidate Profile & Qualifications * Engineering Background: 10+ years in commercial software engineering with 7+ years dedicated to production PHP backend systems. * Leadership Experience: 3–5+ years leading engineering teams or acting as a Technical Lead in high-throughput environments. * Domain Expertise: Strong, verifiable background in regulated FinTech, online brokerage, payment processing, transactional ledgers, or payment reconciliation systems. * Technical Stack: * Expert PHP depth and modern backend engineering practices. * Strong SQL and relational data modeling skills. * Deep experience with REST APIs, callbacks/webhooks, state machines, queues, and asynchronous processing. * Hands-on knowledge of AWS services (S3, DMS/CDC), CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and observability tooling. * Leadership & Soft Skills: Evidence-based decision-maker with clear, concise executive-level communication skills. Pragmatic approach to technical debt and comfortable escalating material launch risks early. * Language: Advanced to Fluent English (B2—C2 level).
Nice to Have * Direct MT4/MT5 brokerage back-office experience. * Hands-on integration experience with Praxis or comparable payment orchestrators. * Familiarity with PCI DSS, multi-currency accounting, KYC/AML workflows, or double-entry ledger concepts. * Exposure to PostgreSQL/MySQL, Redis, Docker/Kubernetes, Kafka, Symfony, or Laravel.
