Head of ML & AI [Riyadh]

About the Client

Our client is building an AI-first operating system for a critical, real-world industry, connecting multiple stakeholders into a single intelligent platform.

The business is already operating at scale, with thousands of active users and live enterprise deployments across multiple markets, integrating transactional, operational, and inventory data into one ecosystem.

They are now entering the next phase of growth:

👉 Evolving from predictive analytics into agentic AI systems that can autonomously make and execute decisions.

The Opportunity

This is a senior, hands-on AI leadership role with a clear mandate:

• Improve core machine learning systems

• Build intelligent, decision-making AI

• Drive measurable operational efficiency across the business

This is not a research or experimentation role; it is focused on applied AI with real-world impact.

What You’ll Be Responsible For

• Owning and evolving the forecasting and optimization engine

• Improving machine learning model accuracy across demand and inventory use cases

• Designing and deploying agentic AI systems that:

• Reduce manual intervention and inefficiencies

• Solving complex challenges such as low-frequency / sparse data forecasting

• Building and scaling production-grade ML systems and pipelines

• Working with large, multi-source datasets across operational systems

• Driving AI adoption across multiple business functions

• Leading a lean, high-impact data science team, while staying hands-on

Experience required:

• 7–12+ years in Data Science / Machine Learning (strong hands-on expertise)

• Proven experience building and improving forecasting models

• Strong experience with statistical and ML approaches (e.g., regression, tree-based models)

• Ability to choose and apply the right model to complex, real-world problems

• Experience deploying ML systems into production environments

• Strong coding skills (Python, ML frameworks, data pipelines)

• Experience leading teams while remaining deeply hands-on

🚫 Not suited for:

• Purely strategic or consulting profiles

• Candidates without strong ML fundamentals

Nice to Have

• Experience with agentic AI systems or decision automation

• Exposure to optimization, reinforcement learning, or advanced ML approaches

• Background in operations-heavy environments (e.g., logistics, marketplaces, etc.)

Why This Role

• Build AI systems that directly impact real-world operations

• Work with large-scale, high-quality datasets

• Own and shape the AI direction of a scaling business

• High visibility, high ownership, and direct access to leadership

• Opportunity to solve complex, non-trivial ML challenges