🚆 We're Hiring: Railway Engineering Manager
Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)
Employment Type: Full-Time
Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior
Work Arrangement: Fully Remote
About Us
We are a transportation organization committed to delivering safe, reliable, efficient, and technically advanced railway infrastructure and systems.
Our teams collaborate across Railway Operations, Civil Engineering, Track, Signalling, Electrification, Rolling Stock, Systems Engineering, Maintenance, Safety, Projects, Procurement, Contractors, Regulators, and technology partners to deliver and maintain high-performing railway networks.
The Role
We are seeking an experienced Railway Engineering Manager to lead engineering strategy, technical delivery, asset performance, design management, engineering assurance, maintenance support, project execution, technical standards, systems integration, and continuous improvement across railway infrastructure and systems.
The successful candidate will provide technical and managerial leadership across the railway engineering lifecycle, from concept and design through construction, testing, commissioning, operation, maintenance, renewal, and asset optimization.
Key ResponsibilitiesRailway Engineering Strategy
- Develop and implement railway engineering strategies aligned with safety, operational, technical, and commercial objectives.
- Establish engineering standards, procedures, specifications, and governance frameworks.
- Develop short- and long-term engineering plans.
- Optimize asset reliability, availability, maintainability, safety, and lifecycle cost.
- Identify opportunities for engineering innovation and digitalization.
Engineering Governance
- Establish engineering governance processes and technical accountabilities.
- Define engineering roles, responsibilities, approval authorities, and escalation procedures.
- Ensure technical decisions are properly documented and controlled.
- Maintain engineering review and approval processes.
- Promote consistent engineering standards across projects and operations.
Technical Management
- Provide technical leadership across railway engineering disciplines.
- Review technical proposals, designs, specifications, calculations, and engineering reports.
- Resolve complex engineering issues.
- Provide technical recommendations to senior management.
- Coordinate multidisciplinary engineering activities.
Railway Systems Engineering
- Coordinate interfaces among railway subsystems.
- Ensure technical requirements are properly defined and managed.
- Manage system interfaces and dependencies.
- Support verification and validation.
- Ensure railway systems operate as an integrated whole.
Systems Integration
- Lead or support integration of:
- Track
- Signalling
- Train Control
- Telecommunications
- Electrification
- Rolling Stock
- Stations
- Depot Systems
- Platform Systems
- Control Centres
- Passenger Information Systems
- Identify interface risks.
- Coordinate multidisciplinary resolution.
- Verify system integration requirements.
Track Engineering
- Oversee technical requirements for railway track systems.
- Manage track geometry, alignment, rail, sleepers, fastening systems, switches, crossings, and associated infrastructure.
- Review track-condition data.
- Support maintenance and renewal strategies.
- Improve track reliability and lifecycle performance.
Engineering KPIs
Monitor and improve:
- Asset availability
- Asset reliability
- Mean time between failures
- Mean time to repair
- System downtime
- Technical incident frequency
- Maintenance backlog
- Critical-defect closure
- RAMS performance
- Engineering change performance
- Design review performance
- Project technical performance
- Testing and commissioning performance
- Regulatory compliance
- Audit findings
- Contractor performance
- Lifecycle cost
- Energy efficiency
- Asset-condition performance
Continuous Improvement
- Lead engineering-improvement programs.
- Improve reliability and maintainability.
- Reduce recurring failures.
- Optimize maintenance strategies.
- Standardize engineering practices.
- Introduce appropriate technologies.
- Capture and share lessons learned.
Engineering Knowledge Management
- Establish engineering knowledge repositories.
- Capture lessons learned.
- Maintain technical standards and engineering guidance.
- Promote knowledge sharing across engineering and operational teams.
Stakeholder Management
Maintain effective relationships with:
- Railway Regulators
- Transport Authorities
- Railway Operators
- Infrastructure Managers
- Rolling Stock Providers
- Engineering Consultants
- MRO and Maintenance Providers
- Construction Contractors
- Signalling Suppliers
- Electrification Suppliers
- Technology Providers
- Safety Teams
- Operations Teams
- Government Authorities
Executive Reporting
- Provide senior leadership with engineering-performance updates.
- Report major technical risks, asset issues, project risks, compliance findings, costs, and engineering improvement programs.
- Present clear recommendations and escalation points.
Team Leadership
- Lead Engineering Managers, Discipline Engineers, Technical Specialists, Engineering Coordinators, Asset Engineers, or related personnel where applicable.
- Establish objectives and KPIs.
- Coach and develop engineering professionals.
- Promote technical excellence, accountability, safety, and innovation.
- Build strong engineering leadership and succession capability.
Key Performance Indicators
Performance may be measured through:
- Railway asset availability
- Railway asset reliability
- Mean time between failures
- Mean time to repair
- Infrastructure failures
- Signalling failures
- Power-system failures
- Track defects
- Technical delay minutes
- Maintenance backlog
- Critical-defect closure
- RAMS compliance
- Design-review performance
- Engineering change completion
- Testing and commissioning performance
- Project technical performance
- Engineering audit findings
- Corrective-action closure
- Contractor technical performance
- Lifecycle cost performance
- Energy-efficiency improvements
- Asset-condition improvement
- Regulatory compliance
- Continuous-improvement results
Ideal Candidate
The successful candidate should have experience in Railway Engineering, Rail Infrastructure, Railway Systems Engineering, Track Engineering, Signalling, Electrification, Civil Engineering, Asset Management, or related transportation disciplines.
The candidate should demonstrate:
- Proven experience managing railway engineering functions or multidisciplinary rail engineering teams.
- Strong understanding of railway infrastructure and systems.
- Experience coordinating track, civil, signalling, electrification, telecommunications, rolling stock, station, or depot engineering.
- Strong systems-engineering and multidisciplinary-interface management capabilities.
- Experience with engineering design, technical specifications, construction, testing, commissioning, and operational handover.
- Strong understanding of RAMS principles.
- Experience with asset management, reliability engineering, maintainability, and lifecycle planning.
- Strong technical-risk and engineering-assurance capabilities.
- Experience managing engineering consultants, contractors, suppliers, and technical partners.
- Experience supporting railway maintenance and asset-renewal programs.
- Strong understanding of engineering change and configuration management.
- Experience with engineering audits, inspections, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance.
- Knowledge of applicable UAE railway and transportation requirements is highly advantageous.
- Knowledge of recognized international railway engineering standards is highly advantageous.
- Experience with new railway projects, extensions, upgrades, or major infrastructure programs is highly advantageous.
- Experience with digital engineering, condition monitoring, predictive maintenance, or asset analytics is advantageous.
- Strong project-management, budget-management, and commercial-awareness capabilities.
- Strong data-analysis and engineering-reporting skills.
- Relevant degree in Railway Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Transportation Engineering, or a related discipline is highly advantageous.
- Professional engineering registration or recognized engineering certification is highly advantageous.
- Railway-specific engineering qualifications or certifications are advantageous.
- Strong written and verbal English communication skills; Arabic is advantageous for UAE/GCC environments.
- Excellent leadership, technical decision-making, planning, problem-solving, analytical, negotiation, and stakeholder-management skills.
- Ability to manage complex multidisciplinary engineering environments and competing technical priorities.
- Ability to make sound decisions involving safety, reliability, cost, schedule, and technical performance.
- Ability to work independently in a fully remote and internationally distributed environment.
- Strong engineering-focused, safety-first, technically rigorous, reliability-driven, analytical, commercially aware, innovative, collaborative, and results-driven mindset.