Data&AI Lead, Vapi

Company Description CloudGate is a Microsoft Solutions Partner specializing in cloud, security, data, and AI transformation for organizations across MENA and Africa. Headquartered in Sharjah Media City with delivery centers in Cairo, Riyadh, Bangalore, and London, CloudGate provides innovative, end-to-end Microsoft solutions that drive business outcomes. Services include Azure infrastructure, Microsoft Security, Modern Work&Copilot, Data&AI, and 24/7 Managed Services. Recognized for multiple Microsoft accolades, including Advanced Specializations and Copilot Ready accreditation, CloudGate is dedicated to helping organizations modernize securely, optimize operations, and embrace innovation. Role Description This is a full-time remote role for a senior Data&AI Lead at CloudGate, reporting to the CTO and owning the Data&AI practice end-to-end. The Data&AI Lead combines solution architecture, customer-facing presales, delivery leadership, and people leadership. You will pitch Microsoft Fabric, Copilot, and the broader Data&AI portfolio to enterprise customers across MENA and Africa, and develop industry-specific use cases that position Fabric as the analytics platform for each customer's sector— including real estate, oil&gas, banking, FMCG, manufacturing, and healthcare. You will participate in solution design from the ground up: leading discovery and requirements-gathering sessions, defining technical prerequisites, shaping the scope of work, and producing effort estimations, bills of materials, and pricing models. You will author technical proposals and statements of work (SOWs), architect and oversee delivery of Microsoft Fabric implementations, and grow a team of data engineers, Power BI developers, and AI consultants. This is a senior, accountable role— you own the practice's revenue, delivery quality, and team capability.Qualifications 8–10 years of progressive experience across data engineering, analytics architecture, and customer-facing solution roles Minimum 3 years in a hybrid lead / architect role with both hands-on delivery and customer-facing presales responsibility Minimum 2 years of production-grade experience with Microsoft Fabric — or equivalent depth on Synapse Analytics, Power BI Premium, Azure Data Factory, or Azure Databricks with a clear migration path into FabricTrack record of leading at least 3 end-to-end modern data platform implementations as lead architect or delivery owner Demonstrable industry use-case fluency— able to walk into a real estate, oil&gas, banking, FMCG, or manufacturing customer and design a credible Fabric / AI solution in the first meeting Proven ability to gather requirements, define prerequisites, scope engagements, and produce effort estimations and BOMs Deep Fabric skills— OneLake, Lakehouse, Warehouse, Delta Lake, Direct Lake, Data Factory, Dataflows Gen2, Fabric CI/CD, and Real-Time IntelligenceStrong PySpark, Spark SQL, and DAX— able to review code and semantic models from junior engineers and raise the bar Hands-on with AI patterns — Copilot for Fabric, Data Agents, AI Skills, Azure OpenAI, RAG, and prompt engineering Microsoft partner experience — familiarity with MSX / Co-Sell, Partner Incentives (AI Accelerate, Azure Accelerate Data&AI, MCI), and Partner Center claim mechanics Proven presales muscle— pitches, technical demos, RFP responses, SOWs, and BOM authoring People leadership experience — managed or mentored at least 3–5 engineers directly Strong written and spoken English with a confident, polished, C-level customer-facing presenceBachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, Engineering, or a related quantitative discipline