Assistant Manager - Process Excellence

About noon

We’re building an ecosystem of digital products and services that power everyday life across the Middle East—fast, scalable, and deeply customer-centric. Our mission is to deliver to every door every day. We want to redefine what technology can do in this region, and we’re looking for a (add title) who can help us move even faster.

Noon’s fastest hyper-local delivery platform, Noon Minutes, offers a localized assortment of FMCG & grocery products with delivery within 15-minutes. Currently live across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, offering thousands of products to customers in record time.

noon’s mission: Every door, every day.

What you'll do:

1) Automation Program & Project Management (Delivery Owner):

• Lead automation programs from business case → design → build → commissioning → go-live → hyper care → steady-state for Noon Minutes.
• Own project plans, budgets, risks, milestones, and vendor governance; ensure delivery meets timelines and performance commitments.
• Align stakeholders across Ops, Engineering, IT/WMS, Finance, Procurement, Safety, and Site teams.
• Drive change management: SOPs, training, staffing model, process redesign, and cutover planning for darkstores and warehouses.
• Define maintenance model: AMC/SLAs, spares strategy, escalation paths, TAT expectations, and 24/7 support structure where needed.
• Negotiate and manage SLAs, milestone-linked payments, warranty terms, penalty clauses, spares commitments, and upgrade cadence.
• Ensure documentation completeness: FAT/SAT protocols, as-built drawings, SOPs, training content, and handover checklists.

2) Solution Design & Process Engineering:

• Translate operational requirements into functional specs: throughput, SKU/QPL profile, tote utilization, peak factors, replenishment logic, station sizing, and constraints.
• Build sizing models, validate vendor assumptions (bottlenecks, robot/crane concurrency, station capacity, buffering).
• Drive WMS/WCS integration readiness (exception handling, operational controls, and stable execution).

3) Innovative Storage & Layout Solutions (Darkstores + Warehouses):

• Design and pilot innovative storage concepts to improve density and pick speed: dynamic slotting, modular racking, tote/bin systems, mezzanine options, compact staging buffers, temperature-zone optimized layouts.
• Develop scalable templates for darkstores (ambient/chilled/frozen) considering space constraints, replenishment frequency, and fast-moving vs long-tail segmentation.
• Own layout optimization roadmap for new site launches and retrofits.

What you'll need:

• 5–10 years experience in warehouse/darkstore operations + automation program delivery (e-commerce, grocery, 3PL, retail, or manufacturing).
• Hands-on exposure to automation solutions: ASRS/G2P, sortation, conveyors, AMRs/AGVs, pallet automation, packing automation.
• Strong understanding of end-to-end operations: inbound, putaway, replenishment, picking, sorting, packing, dispatch, returns, and IC.
• Strong project management: scope control, vendor management, risk and stakeholder alignment.
• Analytical skills: throughput modeling, capacity planning, KPI design, RCA (5-Why, Fishbone), continuous improvement.

Skills & Attributes:

• High ownership mindset; comfortable working on-site and resolving live operational issues.
• Strong communication across business and technical teams.
• Structured problem-solving; ability to challenge vendor assumptions and convert complexity into execution plans.
• Bias for innovation and experimentation in storage/layout design.
• PMP/Prince2, Lean/Six Sigma.
• Experience in temperature-controlled environments (chilled/frozen).
• Experience setting up maintenance models (spares, preventive schedules, uptime-based contracts).

Who will excel?

• We’re looking for people with high standards, who understand that hard work matters.
• You need to be relentlessly resourceful and operate with a deep bias for action.
• We need people with the courage to be fiercely original.
• noon is not for everyone; readiness to adapt, pivot, and learn is essential.