Lead Digital Business Development Specialist

About the Role

The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) is seeking a Lead Digital Business Development Specialist to join their team in Makkah or Jeddah. This contract role involves developing and implementing digital solutions that align with the organization's digital strategy and objectives. The specialist will be responsible for identifying and cultivating strategic partnerships and providing leadership to software development teams to ensure successful project delivery.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide guidance, mentorship, and technical expertise to the development team, ensuring adherence to best practices and standards.
• Lead the planning, execution, and delivery of development projects, including defining project scope, timelines, and resource allocation.
• Drive the architectural design and technical approach for development projects, ensuring scalability, reliability, and performance.
• Conduct code reviews, ensure code quality and adherence to coding standards, and implement quality assurance processes.
• Foster a collaborative and inclusive team environment, encouraging knowledge sharing, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Collaborate with stakeholders, including product managers, business analysts, and clients, to understand requirements and priorities, and communicate project progress and technical solutions effectively.
• Identify and mitigate technical risks and challenges, proactively addressing issues to ensure project success.
• Create and maintain technical documentation, including design documents, architectural diagrams, and code documentation, to support knowledge transfer and future maintenance.
• Evaluate new technologies and tools and make recommendations for their adoption to improve development processes and outcomes.
• Identify performance bottlenecks and optimize code and infrastructure to improve application performance and scalability.
• Collaborate with the Enterprise Architect on platform alignment and support collaboration with the Business to strengthen architecture pillars, particularly those tied to business (*, Information and Application architecture).
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives, including process optimization, tooling enhancements, and automation, to increase efficiency and effectiveness in development processes.
• Ensure departmental demands adhere to the demand intake process with a strong business case, planning to ensure the annual work plan is well-founded for planning and implementation.
• Manage end-to-end solution delivery for the product group, according to agile methodologies, from solution design to delivery, operations, and maintenance. This includes ensuring quality at each stage gate, timely execution, reliability, prompt issue resolution, and business user satisfaction.
• Manage and ensure the effective achievement of functional objectives through team leadership, including setting objectives, conducting meetings, managing performance, developing staff, and providing feedback and appraisal.
• Review prioritized business, functional, and technical requirements and provide feedback to the Business Analyst and Business Relationship Manager based on product subject-matter expertise.
• Understand immediate technology priorities, support innovation proofs of concept and trials, and recommend areas for Innovation Hub research and development.
• Coordinate product-level issues and escalate to the solution delivery manager when required to ensure proactive issue management with stakeholders.

Qualifications and Experience

• A minimum of 10 years of relevant experience in digital business development and software project leadership.
• Proven ability to develop and implement digital solutions aligned with organizational strategies.
• Experience in identifying and cultivating strategic partnerships with technology vendors, platforms, and industry partners.
• Demonstrated leadership in guiding software development teams and ensuring project delivery on time, within budget, and to quality standards.
• Strong understanding of agile methodologies and end-to-end solution delivery processes.

Work Environment

This is a contract position based in either Jeddah or Makkah, Saudi Arabia, within the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB). The role requires collaboration with both internal and external teams, focusing on digital initiatives and performance optimization.