Associate Director SWE & AI

Overview:

The Senior Manager, AI, Software Engineering & Intelligent Automation is responsible for leading the strategy, architecture, development, and delivery of enterprise platforms, digital products, AI solutions, and intelligent automation capabilities across PepsiCo's Strategy & Transformation (S&T) organization. This leader drives innovation through modern Software Engineering, Cloud Platforms, Generative AI, Agentic AI, and Intelligent Automation while ensuring scalable, secure, resilient, and high-performing solutions that deliver measurable business value.

The role provides technical leadership across Software Engineering and Intelligent Automation teams and partners closely with Product, UX, IT, Data & Analytics, Emerging Technology, and Business stakeholders to accelerate digital transformation for Pepsico.

This role is a part of PepsiCo’s S&T (Strategy & Transformation), Platform & Solution Engineering (PSE).

Responsibilities:

Define and execute the technology strategy, architecture, and roadmap for Platform & Solution Engineering (PSE), Software Engineering, AI, and Intelligent Automation capabilities.

Lead the design, development, deployment, and support of enterprise platforms, digital products, APIs, integrations, cloud-native applications, and automation solutions.

Serve as the technical authority for software architecture, cloud platforms, distributed systems, application modernization, and Intelligent Automation platforms including UiPath.

Drive adoption of Generative AI, Agentic AI, AI-assisted development, and automation technologies to improve developer productivity, operational efficiency, and business outcomes.

Build, lead, mentor, and develop high-performing teams of Software Engineers, Solution Architects, RPA Developers, Engineering Managers, and Technical Leads.

Partner with Product Management, User Experience, IT, Data & Analytics, Process Engineering, and Emerging Technology teams to deliver strategic business solutions.

Establish engineering standards, architecture reviews, design reviews, code reviews, testing strategies, DevSecOps practices, automation governance, and operational excellence frameworks.

Lead development of scalable, secure, resilient, and highly available enterprise solutions leveraging modern cloud, platform, and automation technologies.

Provide oversight of RPA platforms, bot architecture, orchestration, infrastructure, licensing, operational support, and automation best practices.

Manage technology roadmaps, delivery risks, dependencies, budgets, and stakeholder communications while ensuring measurable value realization.

Influence executive stakeholders and drive technology decisions that support long-term business and digital transformation objectives.

Qualifications:

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field; Master's Degree preferred.

10+ years of experience in Software Engineering, Solution Architecture, Platform Engineering, Intelligent Automation, or Technology Leadership roles.

3+ years leading multiple software engineering teams, technical leads, engineering managers, or automation teams.

Strong expertise in modern software architecture, object-oriented design, data structures, algorithms, and distributed systems.

Experience building enterprise-scale web, mobile, eCommerce, API-driven, and cloud-native applications.

3+ years of experience with Intelligent Automation or RPA platforms, preferably UiPath, including bot architecture, orchestration, infrastructure, governance, and operational support.

Working knowledge of Java, Python, JavaScript, and modern frameworks such as Spring Boot, React, React Native, Node.js, and microservices architectures.

Experience with Azure (preferred), AWS, and/or Google Cloud Platform, including cloud-native services, containers, APIs, messaging, caching, and platform services.

Deep understanding of design patterns, architecture patterns, DevOps/CI-CD, observability, testing strategies, automation governance, and metrics-driven software delivery.

Experience implementing and operating high-throughput, highly available, mission-critical enterprise systems.

Strong communication, stakeholder management, and organizational leadership skills with experience influencing senior leadership and cross-functional teams.