Director Software Engineering

About the role

Caterpillar Inc. is seeking a Director Software Engineering – Data, Analytics and AI to lead strategic engineering initiatives across Cat Digital’s digital platforms, including enterprise and telematics data ecosystems, advanced analytics, and AI-driven products that support connected equipment, customer experience, and operational excellence. Based in India (Bangalore or Chennai), the role reports to the in-region India & China leader for Cat Digital and oversees teams building cloud-native applications, data platforms, and production AI/ML (including GenAI) capabilities. Day-to-day work involves scaling data engineering and data lake solutions on Snowflake, delivering analytics and insight products, and leading AI/GenAI initiatives such as RAG, vector databases, and agentic workflows, while partnering with global Product, Architecture, Security, and Engineering leaders across time zones.

What you’ll do

• Build, scale, and lead high-performing engineering teams in India across Data Platform, Data Engineering, Data Solutioning, Analytics, and AI/GenAI, fostering a culture of innovation, ownership, colla
• Partner with global Product, Architecture, Security, and Engineering leaders to deliver digital products aligned with Cat Digital priorities, operating across time zones to ensure seamless integration
• Architect and evolve scalable data platforms supporting telematics, IoT, asset health, services, and analytics use cases, leading Snowflake workloads including data lake zones, optimization, ingestion
• Oversee development of enterprise-grade data pipelines across batch and streaming using Spark, Kafka, Airflow, and cloud-native tools, and establish DataOps best practices including data quality autom
• Lead development of ML/AI pipelines including model training, inference, feature stores, monitoring, and lifecycle governance, and drive GenAI innovation across Cat Digital products such as RAG-based
• Enable scalable analytics capabilities supporting Caterpillar’s digital services and internal business operations, driving adoption of governed, self-service analytics and semantic models and partneri
• Ensure platform reliability, scalability, and security in alignment with Caterpillar’s global policies, drive cost optimization across cloud and Snowflake workloads, and implement robust data governan
• Translate enterprise vision and product strategy into clear engineering priorities, roadmaps, and measurable outcomes, balancing long-term platform thinking with near-term business impact while leadin

What you’ll bring

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• 15+ years of software engineering experience with significant leadership across platform, data, analytics, and AI systems
• Proven experience leading multiple engineering teams delivering enterprise-scale digital platforms within large, global or multi-regional organizations
• Strong foundation in cloud-native architectures, data engineering, and modern software design with experience operating and scaling complex systems
• Experience in industrial, manufacturing, automotive, IoT, or connected-equipment environments, including telemetry, edge computing, digital twins, or predictive maintenance
• Demonstrated experience leading AI, ML, or GenAI engineering capabilities at enterprise scale, including close partnership with Data Science, Product, and Architecture teams
• Deep technical expertise in cloud-based data platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP), Snowflake, Spark, Kafka, orchestration tools (Airflow, Dagster), data modeling, data lake/lakehouse architectures, Python, SQL,
• Proven success leading large-scale engineering teams in India with global delivery responsibilities

Skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience