Associate Director SWE & AI

PepsiCo Inc.; Hyderabad; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

PepsiCo seeks a Senior Manager, AI, Software Engineering & Intelligent Automation to lead strategy, architecture, and delivery for platform and product AI solutions within Strategy & Transformation.

You will mentor high‑performing teams, drive cloud-native and automation initiatives, and partner across Product, UX, IT, and Analytics to accelerate digital transformation.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering/IS or related field.
• 10+ years in software engineering, architecture or tech leadership.
• 3+ years leading multiple software teams and engineers.
• Strong knowledge of modern software architecture and distributed systems.
• Experience with enterprise-scale web, API-driven and cloud-native apps.
• 3+ years in Intelligent Automation or RPA, preferably UiPath.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute strategy, architecture, and roadmap for PSE, software engineering, AI, and automation.
• Lead design, deployment, and support of enterprise platforms, APIs, and cloud apps.
• Serve as technical authority for architecture, cloud, and automation platforms.
• Drive Generative AI adoption to boost developer productivity and business outcomes.
• Mentor and develop high-performing engineering and automation teams.
• Partner with product, UX, IT, data, and emerging tech to deliver solutions.
• Establish engineering standards, reviews, and DevSecOps practices.
• Oversee RPA platforms, bot architecture, governance, and operations.
• Manage roadmaps, risks, budgets, and stakeholder communications.

Skills

Software Engineering Leadership

Architecture

Generative AI

Cloud Platforms

RPA/Intelligent Automation

Stakeholder Management

Team Mentoring

Distributed Systems

DevSecOps

API/Cloud-Native

Education

Bachelor's Degree in CS/Engineering/IS

Master's Degree preferred

Tools

UiPath

Spring Boot

React/Node.js

Azure/AWS/GCP

Job description

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.