Senior Shops Operations Lead

Careem is building the Everything App for the greater Middle East - making it easy to move around, order food and groceries, manage payments, and more. Our purpose is simple: to simplify and improve people’s lives and build an awesome organisation that inspires.

Since 2012, Careem has enabled earnings for over 2.5 million Captains, simplified the lives of more than 70 million customers, and built a platform where the region’s best talent and entrepreneurs thrive. We operate in 70+ cities across 10 countries, from Morocco to Pakistan.

We’re now entering our next chapter - one powered by AI. We’re looking for AI talent: curious problem-solvers who know how to apply AI to build tools, automate workflows, and create real impact. Whether it’s streamlining operations, enhancing customer experience, or reimagining internal systems - we want people who can make Careem work smarter and move faster.

About the role

We're looking for a Senior Shops Operations Lead to own the performance of our Shops marketplace across the UAE and Jordan. This is a purely marketplace mandate so your world is merchant partners, their in-store picking teams, and the KPIs that determine a delightful customer experience. You'll sit at the intersection of merchant operations, strategic planning, and hands-on picking excellence, reporting directly into the General Manager, Shops.

What you'll do

• Merchant Operations Performance: Own the end-to-end performance scorecard for merchant partners across UAE & JOR - order acceptance rate, prep time, order accuracy, cancellation rate, and customer contact rate and run the cadence that holds merchants accountable to it.
• Strategic Planning & KPI Improvement: Translate performance gaps into a strategic roadmap: identify the top drivers of GMV leakage, AOV underperformance, and take-rate erosion, and build the initiatives that close them, from pilot to regional rollout.
• Picking Operations Management: Manage the picking operation embedded within partner stores across UAE and Jordan - picker productivity, pick-to-pack time, and accuracy including training standards, tooling, and process design that partners can actually run day-to-day.
• Unit Economics: Build and defend the Last-Mile Unit Economics of every merchant cohort, working with Captain Operations to balance delivery cost, speed, and Captain earnings.
• Business Reviews: Run quarterly and monthly business reviews with top merchant accounts, using cohort-level data (e.g., "Based on recent cohorts in Abu Dhabi and Amman...") to justify investment or intervention.
• Peak Planning: Lead peak-season readiness planning for Ramadan and Dubai Shopping Festival - demand forecasting, merchant capacity planning, and picking-team surge staffing.
• Team & Cross-Functional Leadership: Manage a team of Operations Specialists/Leads across both markets, and act as the connective tissue between central functions.

What you'll need

• 4 - 7 years in operations, quick-commerce, last-mile logistics, or retail/e-commerce marketplace roles, with at least 2 years managing teams and external partners directly.
• Experience managing frontline or in-store operations (picking, warehousing, fulfillment) - you've been on the floor, not just in the dashboard.
• Strong data fluency (Excel/SQL and BI tools) paired with the judgement to know when a number needs a conversation, not just a chart.
• Willingness to travel regularly between the UAE and Jordan.
• Arabic and English fluency preferred.

What we’ll provide you

We offer colleagues the opportunity to drive impact in the region while they learn and grow. As a full time Careem colleague, you will be able to:

• Work and learn from great minds by joining a community of inspiring colleagues.
• Put your passion to work in a purposeful organisation dedicated to creating impact in a region with a lot of untapped potential.
• Explore new opportunities to learn and grow every day.
• Work remotely from any country in the world for 30 days a year with unlimited vacation days per year.
• Access to healthcare benefits and fitness reimbursements for health activities including gym, health club, and training classes.