Data & AI Platform Section Head

About the Role

Saudi Air Navigation Services (SANS) is seeking a Data & AI Platform Section Head to lead the engineering, delivery, and operational management of the enterprise data and AI platforms. This full-time position is based in Makkah, specifically in Jeddah or Makkah, and is crucial for enabling analytics, AI, and enterprise reporting across the organization. The role involves ensuring platforms are scalable, reliable, secure, and aligned with enterprise digital priorities.

Key Responsibilities

• Translate enterprise data and AI strategies into actionable engineering roadmaps and platform enablement plans.
• Lead engineering, deployment, and operational support for data and AI platforms, ensuring reliability, performance, and scalability.
• Oversee platform provisioning, monitoring, and optimization to enable business-critical analytics and AI workloads.
• Ensure platforms meet enterprise standards for security, resilience, and performance.
• Enable advanced analytics, AI, and reporting capabilities by providing high-quality, reliable, and accessible data.
• Support business teams and data scientists with platforms, tools, and environments to accelerate AI model development and adoption.
• Ensure seamless integration of data across applications, platforms, and enterprise systems.
• Oversee API/middleware support for data ingestion, transformation, and distribution.
• Maintain high data availability, integrity, and flow across the data & AI landscape.

Reporting and Continuous Improvement

• Provide regular updates to the Enterprise Platform, Apps & Analytics Manager on roadmap execution, risks, and modernization priorities.
• Apply enterprise standards and best practices for platform engineering, monitoring, and maintenance.
• Maintain accurate documentation for platform configurations, integrations, and operations to support compliance and audit readiness.
• Capture lessons learned, embed automation, and continuously improve data and AI platform maturity.

Policy and Process Adherence

• Support in monitoring day-to-day activities to ensure compliance with stipulated policies and procedures.
• Contribute to identifying opportunities for continuous improvement of systems and processes, considering leading practices, changes in the business environment, cost reduction, and productivity improvement.

People Management

• Actively participate in on-the-job training, mentoring, and coaching of subordinates.
• Provide clear direction, prioritize tasks, assign and delegate responsibility, and monitor workflow.
• Promote a high-performance working environment embracing SANS’s values.

Qualifications and Experience

• Candidates should possess a minimum of 10 years of relevant experience.