Data Protection Engineer | Corporate Services | Group Tech & Dig Platforms

Job Requisition ID: 180300 

Established in the 1930s as a trading business, Al-Futtaim Group today is one of the most diversified and progressive, privately held regional businesses headquartered in Dubai, United A”rab Emirates. Structured into five operating divisions; automotive, financial services, real estate, retail and healthcare; employing more than 35,000 employees across more than 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, Al-Futtaim Group partners with over 200 of the world's most admired and innovative brands. Al-Futtaim Group’s entrepreneurship and relentless customer focus enables the organisation to continue to grow and expand; responding to the changing needs of our customers within the societies in which we operate. 

By upholding our values of respect, excellence, collaboration and integrity; Al-Futtaim Group continues to enrich the lives and aspirations of our customers each and every day.

Overview Of The Role:

• The Data Protection Engineer is responsible for managing and safeguarding data protection platforms across Cloud and On-Premises environments. This role involves overseeing backup operations globally, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, and collaborating with vendors to maintain the latest technology solutions. The engineer will drive the standardization, modernization, and life cycle management of backup systems to support business continuity and operational efficiency.

What You Will Do:

Data Protection Platform Management

• Design, implement, and manage backup and recovery solutions ensuring compliance with data protection standards.
• Engage with vendors to conduct periodic health checks of the platform and implement best practice recommendations.
• Modernize cloud backup platforms to extend data protection coverage to modern workloads.
• Standardize backup solutions across regions to improve operational efficiency and reduce reliance on business users for tape management.
• Manage the full life cycle of the NetBackup platform, including hardware and software.
• Prepare plans to upgrade master and media servers to the latest version ensuring seamless transitions.

Data Protection Operations & Administration

• Ensure overall availability, performance, security, and business continuity of the data protection platform.
• Engage with application stakeholders to define and enforce backup retention policies according to business, legal, and regulatory requirements.
• Review backed-up data with application owners periodically, adjusting SLP as necessary.
• Produce backup reports, assess system success or failure, and implement corrective actions as needed.

Data Life Cycle Management

• Manage life cycle of backed-up data from retention to expiry and conduct regular reviews of expired and orphan images to optimize storage.
• Ensure long-term retention backups are migrated to archival storage in the Cloud, and On-Prem tapes are securely vaulted offsite.
• Maintain detailed records of retired media and oversee their secure disposal in compliance with Data Disposal Policy.

Backup Testing and Restoration

• Perform periodic tests to verify backup data integrity and reliability.
• Verify processes meet defined Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), correcting discrepancies if identified.
• Responsible for data recovery in cases of failure or disaster, ensuring quick restoration.
• Document and practice steps required for restoring data from backups.

Continuous Monitoring and Improvement

• Monitor effectiveness of backup solutions and adjust lifecycle policies as necessary.
• Track storage consumption and backup storage growth ensuring adequate capacity availability.

Security & Compliance

• Secure the backup platforms and hardware appliances by applying the latest security patches and implementing mitigation measures to minimize risks.
• Implement end-to-end encryption of backup data during storage and retrieval.
• Ensure all backup data is stored on immutable storage to safeguard against unauthorized modifications and ransomware attacks.

Required Skills To Be Successful:

• Hands-on experience with backup and recovery of PaaS workloads including Azure SQL Database and other managed services.
• Experience with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and containerized applications backup.
• Strong understanding of disaster recovery, cyber resilience, backup architecture, and data lifecycle management.
• Ability to engage with stakeholders to enforce compliant backup policies based on legal and regulatory requirements.

What Qualifies You For The Role:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Computer Engineering or related discipline.
• Enterprise backup certification (e.g., Cohesity, Veritas NetBackup, Veeam) and a Microsoft Azure certification (AZ-104 or higher) are required.
• Minimum of 5+ years hands-on experience in enterprise backup, recovery, and data protection technologies.
• At least 3 years of experience administering enterprise backup solutions such as Cohesity, Veritas NetBackup, or Veeam Software.

We’re here to provide excellent service but a little help from you can ensure a five-star candidate experience from start to finish.

Before you click “apply”: Please read the job description carefully to ensure you can confidently demonstrate why this opportunity is right for you and take the time to put together a well-crafted and personalised CV to further boost your visibility. Our global Talent Acquisition team members are all assigned to specific businesses to ensure that we make the best matches between talent and opportunities. We not only consider the requisite compatibility of skills and behaviours, but also how candidates align with our Values of Respect, Integrity, Collaboration, and Excellence.

As part of our candidate experience promise, we also want to make ourselves available to you throughout the application process. We make every effort to review and respond to every application.