Forward Deployed Engineer

About the role

Lean is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to help selected strategic enterprise customers activate faster and with higher quality.

This is a senior, customer-facing technical role for someone who can sit close to the customer during the hardest parts of activation: integrations, governance, security, legacy systems, payment flows, reconciliation, ERP/onboarding/invoicing dependencies, and unclear ownership across teams.

This role is intentionally high-touch and onsite-heavy. You should expect to spend meaningful time at customer offices during critical activation windows, working directly with client teams to compress ambiguity, unblock decisions, and keep momentum. In some cases this may mean 1–3 days per week onsite; in more complex activation windows, it may mean 4–5 days per week onsite for a period of time.

The role is requires hands-on enterprise activation handholding, with enough technical depth to unblock real issues and enough customer judgment to operate safely in high-stakes enterprise environments.

Who we are

Lean is building the fintech infrastructure platform that catalyzes the next generation of payments and fintech solutions in the region. Our solutions range from open banking and open finance connectivity, account-to-account payments, credit decisioning capabilities, and cross-border stablecoin-powered payments. Our products have garnered the trust of leading companies and enabled them to deliver powerful experiences when connected with a user’s bank account, allowing users to perform prudent financial planning, get better rates on loans, transfer money to friends, and more, without compromising on privacy or security.

Backed by top-tier global investors, including General Catalyst, Sequoia, and Shorooq, and having recently raised $67.5M in Series B funding, we’re building the rails for Open Finance in MENA. We’re trusted by 300+ clients across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, including the likes of Tabby, Tas’heel, Hungerstation, and many more, making it the region’s most valuable Open Banking platform.

We are building modern infrastructure and rails for MENA, processing billions of dollars in transactions and enabling seamless, secure, and compliant financial connectivity. The Solutions Engineering team partners closely with Sales and Product to make Lean the integration platform of choice for the region.

What you’ll do

• Own the technical thread for 1–2 strategic enterprise activations.

• Spend regular time onsite with customer teams, especially during critical activation windows.

• Work directly with customer business, product, engineering, security, finance, and operations teams.

• Map the customer’s real systems, workflows, stakeholders, dependencies, and blockers.

• Help customers move through API integrations, SDK behaviour, webhooks, sandbox testing, production readiness, and launch issues.

• Diagnose technical problems using logs, payloads, API behaviour, configuration, and integration flows.

• Support complex activation areas such as ERP, onboarding, invoicing, reconciliation, settlement, payment operations, and legacy systems.

• Use onsite working sessions to unblock decisions live, align teams, clarify ownership, and reduce back-and-forth.

• Reduce ambiguity and keep activation momentum when work gets stuck between teams.

• Translate messy customer problems into clear asks for Product and Engineering.

• Prototype, script, document, or test when it helps unblock the activation.

• Push back when needed so Lean does not create fragile one-off solutions or permanent dependencies.

• Feed back the important learnings into Product, Engineering, Solutions, Implementation, and Commercial.

What you’ll bring

• Relevant experience: Senior / Lead IC background in Solutions Engineering, Solutions Architecture, Product Engineering, Technical Implementation, Integration Architecture, or FDE.

• Technical baseline: Strong with APIs, coding skills, integrations, logs, payloads, SDKs, webhooks, sandbox testing, and production troubleshooting.

• Customer presence: Comfortable working directly with enterprise business, product, engineering, security, finance, and ops teams.

• Onsite readiness: Willing and able to spend regular time at customer offices, including heavier onsite periods during critical activation windows.

• Behavioral strengths: High agency, clear communication, strong judgment under ambiguity, pain tolerance, and ability to push back without losing trust.

• Language / market fit: Strong English required. GCC enterprise experience preferred. Arabic is a strong plus, especially for KSA/UAE work.

• Nice to have: Fintech, open banking, payments, lending, ERP, reconciliation, settlement, onboarding, invoicing, or legacy systems experience.

NB. While we think the above experience could be important, we’re keen to hear from people that believe they have valuable experience to bring to the role. If you identify with the team and mission, but not all of our requirements, then please still apply!!

Why Join us?

We’re building the financial infrastructure for MENA. Not as a slogan, as a fact.

Since 2019, we’ve become the first regulated Open Banking and Open Finance company operating across the UAE and Saudi Arabia. We’ve processed billions of dollars. We connect millions of accounts. We enable companies like Binance, Careem, and Etisalat to build products that were previously impossible in this region.

Our recent $67.5M Series B from General Catalyst and Sequoia isn’t just validation: it’s fuel. We’re expanding into new markets, launching new products, and setting the pace for what financial innovation looks like in MENA.

We solve hard problems. We move fast. We hold ourselves to a high standard. And we’re looking for people who’ve done this before to help us do it right.

If you’re motivated by building something that lasts, not just something that scales, Lean is where you need to be.

Not only do we offer competitive salaries, private healthcare, and flexible office hours, but we also insist that every member of the team hold a meaningful equity stake in the business to ensure long-term alignment. We'd love you to join us for this journey!

Lean is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

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