About GIG Gulf
GIG Gulf (a Fairfax company) is part of the Gulf Insurance Group (GIG), the #1 largest regional composite insurer in the Middle East and North Africa, with a presence in 12 markets. GIG Gulf is an ‘A’ rated regional insurer with a top 5 position in each of its markets (UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain). With over 70 years in the region, GIG Gulf offers a wide range of insurance products and services for corporates, SMEs, and individual customers. The company emphasizes Regional Growth, Customer Experience, and Digital Transformation, fostering a diverse and inclusive working environment with over 800 employees from 60+ nationalities.
Job Purpose
The Data Architecture Manager will contribute to the business purpose of a Regional Insurance Leader by being a data-driven, technologically savvy, and hands-on Data Architect with Data Engineering exposure on AWS and Azure Cloud. You will express your passion with GIG Gulf business and IT stakeholders to:
- Define and maintain GIG Gulf IT Data standards, architectural guidelines, and solutions.
- Lead pilots, POCs, and exploration of new innovative solutions, practices, and patterns.
- Influence the delivery of GIG Gulf Data & AI projects on time, quality, and budget.
- Actively contribute to GIG Gulf’s Data & AI vision and roadmap, including business case definition, project requirements, organization, and methodology.
Key Responsibilities
Architecture
- Lead the definition and maintenance of GIG Gulf’s enterprise data and AI architecture and delivery roadmap.
- Drive the data and AI architecture aligned with GIG Gulf’s business and technology strategy.
- Contribute to the IT Strategy Plan, including cloud, data, analytics, and AI capabilities.
- Support the selection and evolution of data and AI platforms, technologies, and strategic partners.
Data & AI Platform Leadership
- Define architectural patterns for data platforms supporting analytics, reporting, AI/ML, and GenAI use cases.
- Guide the design of AI-ready data foundations, including structured and unstructured data pipelines.
- Ensure architectural consistency, reuse, and alignment across data, analytics, and AI solutions.
- Work closely with information security, risk, and compliance teams to embed governance and controls.
Technical Leadership
Strong technical leader with broad and in-depth understanding of:
- Data architecture, data modeling, and data governance.
- Data engineering and cloud-native data platforms.
- Analytics, BI, and AI/ML solution patterns.
- Generative AI concepts including LLM-based solutions, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and vector-based retrieval architectures.
- Maintain practical knowledge of data and AI services from AWS and Azure along with modern development practices.
Operational & Technical Responsibilities
Data & AI Architecture
Function as an active, initiative‑taking Data and AI Architect for GIG Gulf initiatives:
- Refine and maintain data and AI architecture frameworks, guidelines, and design patterns.
- Define target-state architectures for master data (customer, product, provider, referential data).
- Contribute to solution and technical architecture covering:
- Data lakes and analytical platforms.
- AI/ML and GenAI-enabled use cases.
- Design architecture that supports AI workloads, including (desirable):
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) patterns.
- Vector storage and semantic retrieval for enterprise knowledge use cases.
- Secure integration of public or foundation models with internal data.
Tangible Outcomes & Delivery Focus
Maintain a strong delivery and results orientation:
- Contribute to the data and AI roadmap aligned to business priorities.
- Lead implementation of data and analytics solutions on AWS (e.g., S3, Glue, Redshift, RDS, Lambda, Athena) and/or Azure (e.g., Data Lake Storage, Data Factory, Synapse Analytics, Azure Functions, Event Hubs).
- Oversee data modeling for OLTP and OLAP systems, including data quality, cleansing, and de-duplication initiatives.
- Guide data engineering practices using Spark (Python, Spark SQL), data workflows, and automated pipelines.
- Support AI-enabled analytics and reporting use cases through curated data marts and BI extensions.
- Ensure solutions are production-ready, documented, and maintainable.
AI Solution Governance & Integration
- Define architectural guardrails for enterprise AI usage, including (desirable):
- Responsible and compliant use of LLMs and GenAI services.
- Data access, privacy, and residency controls for AI solutions.
- Integration patterns for AI agents and automated workflows where applicable.
- Support evaluation and controlled adoption of AI technologies, avoiding fragmented or unmanaged deployments.
- Ensure AI solutions are aligned with enterprise architecture, security, and regulatory requirements.
Communication & Stakeholder Engagement
- Prepare clear, structured architectural proposals and decision papers with supporting rationale.
- Communicate architectural choices to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Provide clear recommendations aligned with business outcomes and strategy.
- Promote collaboration, reuse, and shared ownership across delivery teams.
Quality & Operational Excellence
- Ensure high-quality testing, data validation, and operational readiness of data and AI platforms.
- Support incident, problem, and defect analysis related to data and AI solutions.
- Track and follow up on issues to ensure timely resolution and continuous improvement.
People Leadership
- Manage recruitment and onboarding of data and AI team members in collaboration with HR.
- Set, review, and track team objectives and performance.
- Support team development through coaching, mentoring, and targeted training.
- Foster a collaborative culture aligned with GIG values and delivery commitments.
Business / Domain Knowledge Requirements
- Knowledge of Health Data industry.
- Basic knowledge of the insurance business.
- Basic understanding of market practices/business processes.
- Understanding of regulatory challenges, including compliance, data privacy and residency.
Minimum Requirements
Qualifications & Technical Skills
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
- Master’s degree or relevant professional certifications.