Applied AI Manager

talabat is seeking an Applied AI Manager to lead a team of data scientists building and shipping ML and generative AI systems that power decisions across talabat's product and business. This role is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Join us to turn cutting-edge AI into genuine, measurable business value.

talabat is the leading on-demand delivery platform in the MENA region, offering customers a convenient way to order food, groceries, and other convenience products. As a subsidiary of Delivery Hero SE, talabat leverages global expertise to drive innovation in the on-demand delivery sector.

We are building a high-performance culture through an engaged workforce and growing talent density. If you are passionate about AI and want to make a difference, apply now!

Company Overview

talabat is the leading on-demand delivery platform in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, offering customers a convenient and personalized way to order food, groceries, and other convenience products from a wide selection of restaurants and retailers. Founded in Kuwait in 2004, talabat has expanded its operations to eight countries and is headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

As a subsidiary of Delivery Hero SE, talabat leverages global expertise to strengthen its market position and drive innovation in the on-demand delivery sector. With a robust network of partners and riders, talabat continues to solidify its leadership in the MENA region's on-demand delivery market, connecting customers, partners, and riders through its advanced technology platform.

Quick Details

• Salary Range: Not Specified
• Job Type: Full-time
• Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field. A postgraduate degree is a plus.
• Experience: 6+ years of experience in data science, ML engineering, and/or generative AI, including shipping models to production. 2+ years managing or leading a data science or ML team.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, grow, and retain a team of data scientists, setting a high bar for technical quality and fostering a culture of ownership.
• Translate ambiguous business problems into well-scoped ML and AI solutions with clear, measurable success criteria.
• Own the team's technical roadmap, prioritizing high-impact work across data enrichment, business automation, self-serve tooling, and agentic product features.
• Oversee the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, feature engineering, model training, production deployment, serving, and monitoring.
• Drive adoption of LLMs and generative AI for data enrichment, smart content understanding, and automated decision-making at scale.
• Partner with product managers and business teams to identify high-value AI opportunities and shape them into the team's roadmap.

Requirements

• Deep expertise in machine learning, generative AI, deep learning, NLP, recommendation systems, and data mining.
• Hands-on knowledge of ML and GenAI frameworks: Scikit-learn, XGBoost, LightGBM, PyTorch, TensorFlow, Transformers, and LLM fine-tuning.
• Proficiency with the OpenAI SDK and familiarity with major LLM provider APIs.
• Hands-on experience with LangGraph for building stateful, multi-step agentic workflows.
• Solid understanding of embeddings, dense and sparse retrieval, vector databases, and semantic search.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: clean production code, data structures and algorithms, ML system design.
• Proven experience shipping and monitoring ML models in production, with a solid grasp of MLOps practices.
• Excellent SQL and Python; solid statistical foundations including experiment design, causal inference, and predictive methods.

Benefits

• Opportunities for professional development and career growth within talabat.
• Work in a dynamic and innovative AI team.
• Contribute to shaping the future of on-demand delivery through AI.
• Be part of a multi great place to work award winner company.
• Engage with cutting-edge AI technologies and frameworks.