Dubai Software Engineering Management Group

We are done with the final event of the year! Junaid Qureshi, who held various leadership positions at companies like noon, fetchr, Careem and kaykroo and now is running his own startup and is an Investor & Board Member @ Global Vertices, came for a fireside chat about his experience. Listening to all his stories was insightful to say the least - we talked about hiring, managing performance, mentors, qualities he is looking for in people and.. the value of cultural values. I loved it and I can’t wait for round 2! Huge huge thanks to Reece Warren for convincing Junaid to come and share his knowledge, to Dmitrii Vastianov for taking the photos and finally to Byron Tudhope and talabat for hosting us yet again :) See you all in 2025! #uae #dubai #softwareengineering #management #leadership #technology #softwarearchitecture #meetup #uaecodes #engineeringleadership

We just got done with our 40th meetup with a record-breaking attendance. Mostafa Menessy, CTO & Co-founder of Paymob, delivered a masterclass on engineering metrics - and talked about why a combination of different approaches is the way to go Mostafa shared insights from his extensive experience of growing Paymob, diving into: - The challenges of measuring operational efficiency regardless of business growth - The power of OKRs to bring clarity, accountability, and motivation to teams - and their shortcomings when it comes to measuring engineering teams performance - Engineering-specific frameworks like DORA, SPACE, and DevEx and how they can help with filling the gaps It didn't stop there—after the presentation, we had a lengthy Q&A about failure modes, doubts about using any sort of metrics for measuring performance in general, and the value of these frameworks for engineers – rather than just engineering leaders. Huge props to  - Mostafa Menessy for the presentation,  - Vincent AUCLAIR & Ciprian Spiridon for helping to shape the presentation - and Careem & Abbas Jeraj for hosting us yet again! :) #uae #dubai #softwareengineering #management #leadership #technology #softwarearchitecture #meetup #uaecodes #engineeringleadership

For the 39th meetup, we had a panel discussion about working at 100% remote companies with - Gautham Nagaraj - Sr. Solutions Architect @ GitLab - Sarosh Aga - EM @ Automattic - Artur Wierzbicki - Sr. EM Grafana Labs as panelists, and Loïc Tosser, CTO & Co-Founder of Kalvad as the moderator. We kicked it off with a 5-minute presentation from each panelist to help the audience understand each company, the role each person plays in the company, and their unique takes. Unsurprisingly, the common themes were all about intentionally hiring and selecting highly autonomous people, offsites and their value (outside of simply building relationships), and async communications. The following, almost 1 hour-long, discussion was all over the place. My favorite subject was work-life balance. I am _far_ from the ideal -- but if I can say one thing for sure, its that 100% remote work allows you to have a work-life balance that you simply can't achieve when working from the office; working remotely gives you a ton of opportunities to be present with your family when it matters in a way that doesn't impact your.. impact at work. I would never go back! Again, huge props to - our panelists - Gautham Nagaraj, Sarosh Aga and Artur Wierzbicki for all the insights and a sneak peek into a 100% remote world - our host - Loïc Tosser for making it fun and engaging - Vincent AUCLAIR, Dmitrii Vastianov, Swanand Pagnis for all the input beforehand to make the content great -- and Vincent for taking the pictures :) - and finally - to Byron Tudhope and talabat for hosting us yet again❤️❤️ Link to RSVP for Dec 5th in comments! #uae #dubai #softwareengineering #management #leadership #technology #softwarearchitecture #meetup #uaecodes #engineeringleadership

For our 38th meet, Gaia Camillieri, former CPO @ Standard Chartered for Trade and Lending Digital Channels, talked about something you usually don’t hear about - she talked about all the unsuccessful digital transformation stories she has witnessed. We went deep into the reasons for each failure, lessons learned, and what were the early bright red flags that everyone should be aware of if they were put in a similar position. What stuck with me the most was Gaia’s passionate plea at the very end of the presentation - in the end, the business _will_ make decisions. We, as engineering leaders, have to make our concerns heard (repeatedly and loudly!) because otherwise, those decisions won’t be made with all of the required context. Whether that’s future-proofing, technical debt, or unreasonable timelines - we need to speak and ensure we are understood! Huge props to Gaia Camillieri for the presentation, Reece Warren for finding such a great speaker, and finally to Careem & Abbas Jeraj for hosting us yet again! :) #uae #dubai #softwareengineering #management #leadership #technology #softwarearchitecture #meetup #uaecodes #engineeringleadership

During our 37th event, Luís Rodrigues, CTO @ QuickCheck, whose career spans from software engineering at CERN to operating startups across Nigeria, Myanmar, and Portugal, shared his journey of scaling teams from 4 to 15, then to 75, and eventually to 250 across multiple markets. Our fireside chat host, Ciprian Spiridon, CTO of Mumzworld.com and a specialist in scaling tech startups in the UAE and the UK, steered the conversation with his signature no-nonsense approach. They mainly talked about real hiring challenges across regions; from heavily automating recruitment operations to implementing rigorous 6-hour case studies as part of the hiring process (sorry, not sorry). The session offered a candid look at the tools and strategies for hiring the best engineering talent—no fluff, just practical insights that are truly valuable for any tech leader looking to scale effectively. This event took some effort! A massive thank you goes to.. - Luís Rodrigues, for sharing all his lessons learned - Ciprian Spiridon for hosting the fireside chat, - Dmitrii Vastianov & Vincent AUCLAIR for helping out with the discussion points, taking pictures, and doing the post-event write-up - Bhanavi Shukla for suggesting reaching out to Luís - Byron Tudhope for accommodating all of our last minute office/space needs ❤️ - and last but not least to talabat for welcoming us into their office yet again! Check the comments for a link to sign up for our next event on Nov 7th! #UAE #Dubai #SoftwareEngineering #Leadership #TechStartups #Hiring #EngineeringLeadership

Happy Wednesday everyone! Join us this Thursday @ talabat HQ for a fireside chat between Luís Rodriguez (https://lnkd.in/dphXPzBv) and myself. Luís has a wealth of experiences we could all learn from - from getting an MSc in AI back when it wasn't cool and working at CERN, through joining a founding team of a tech investment company and growing it to 200+ people to cofounding & growing a fintech company to ~150 employees and leading a financial services consultancy in MENA. He will share all the stories - the good and bad :) Scaling and growing organizations is his specialty, so we are all in for a treat! If you'd like to come, please sign up at https://lnkd.in/dZi_7pR2 I will will be hosting this time as Artur Wierzbicki is aboard 🔥🔥🔥

What an event! Ali Aktar, CEO & Founder of C-9ine, gave us a masterclass in scaling teams & building up company culture in an intentional way. He went over best practices he developed over almost 30 years of his career; he gave great tips for hiring, setting up team norms and practices, coming up with team charters, communicating with non-tech senior łeaders, and much much more. As always, we followed up the presentation with a lengthy and lively Q&A during which we dove deep into the concepts from the presentation. What also made this event special—other than the great presentation—was that we met at the Property Finder office for the first time ever! Huge thanks to Alexander Walker, Amali Munasinghe, Erdem Ilhan, and @Himanshu Niranjani for making this happen and accommodating a record-breaking number of people :) … and of course, huge thank you to Ali for flying in from Saudi to teach us all a thing or two! Check comments for a link to sign up for our next session on Oct 24th! #uae #dubai #softwareengineering #management #leadership #technology #softwarearchitecture #meetup #uaecodes #engineeringleadership

Our next meetup on October 10th is shaping up to be amazing; we will have a fantastic speaker give a talk about a highly requested topic, and we are meeting at a new location! Ali Aktar, founder and CEO of C-9ine, is coming to Dubai to talk about lessons learned from scaling engineering teams. He has a lot to share with 28 years of experience in the tech sector; he has held 4 Head of Engineering roles and 3 CTO roles across the UK and Saudi Arabia. He built teams from 15 to 240 people from scratch and then successfully transitioned them to operational support. As for the location, I am happy to announce that the October 10th meetup will be held at the Property Finder office! Huge thanks to Alexander Walker, Amali Munasinghe, Himanshu Niranjani and others for making this happen :) Sign up link in comments - can't wait to see you all! #uae #dubai #softwareengineering #management #leadership #technology #softwarearchitecture #meetup #uaecodes #engineeringleadership

Kiko Basilio is back! This time around, he talked about the role of leaders in Agile. The talk revolved around the idea of "letting the teams just self-organize themselves" is something that sounds great in theory, but in practice, it often doesn't work, and people do people rarely have a good idea of what to do about it. I think we have all learned something - whether that's the Shu-Ha-Ri concept and how it helps troubleshoot team dynamics or that there is a ton of value in traditional management practices, regardless of the used labels. Check comments for a link to the presentation and for a link to sign up for our next meetup on October 10th! Huge thanks to Byron Tudhope and talabat for hosting us yet again and to Reece Warren for making the initial connection with Kiko :) #uae #dubai #softwareengineering #management #leadership #technology #softwarearchitecture #meetup #uaecodes #engineeringleadership

I am always looking for people willing to step up and share their experiences with an audience of around 50 engineering managers, directors, VPs, and CTOs from companies ranging from the biggest corps in the region to ambitious startups. The Dubai Software Engineering Management Group meetups are held fortnightly – so we are in need of many, many exceptional people. I am especially interested in people who have significant experience with scaling companies/engineering departments (10x, 100x HC), led multiple mission-critical software projects that moved business metrics, have strong and unconventional opinions about people management, or simply want to share lessons learned from a long career. Do you fit the bill? Message me! Know someone who fits the bill? Tag them below! Else?! Repost to help me out :) Check out comments for a link to a site with all past topics and presenters. #uae #dubai #softwareengineering #management #leadership #technology #softwarearchitecture #meetup #uaecodes #engineeringleadership