Group Lead - Data Science, AI & ML Engineering

Kraft Heinz India Pvt Ltd; Bengaluru; Hybrid; INR 4,500,000 - 7,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Kraft Heinz India Pvt Ltd in Bengaluru is seeking a Group Lead to oversee Data Science, AI Engineering, ML Engineering, and MLOps from the India GCC. The role entails building and mentoring the engineering team, defining delivery standards, and owning end-to-end delivery of experiments and platform solutions.

The successful candidate will partner with North America leadership, manage offshore consultants, ensure platform stability, establish SLAs, and drive a repeatable, high-quality delivery

Qualifications

• Hands-on delivery of data science, GenAI and ML solutions to production.
• Experience with enterprise AI/ML platforms and cloud services.
• Proven people leadership, hiring and mentoring data scientists and engineers.

Responsibilities

• Lead Data Science, AI Engineering, ML Engineering & MLOps for the GCC in Bangalore.
• Build and mentor the engineering team and define the delivery framework.
• Own delivery of data science experiments, AI/ML solutions and the Platform.
• Ensure AI/ML platform stability with GCC engineers and offshore partners.
• Define engagement, staffing, quality and timelines across disciplines.
• Liaise with North America leadership to align priorities, patterns, and standards.

Skills

Data Science

GenAI

ML Engineering

MLOps

Leadership

Python

Azure

CI/CD

Tools

Azure ML

Azure OpenAI Service

Snowflake Cortex

AKS

Git/DevOps

LangGraph

Job description

Group Lead, AI & MLE Ops Job Description

KRAFT HEINZ Data, AI & Digital Innovation - India GCC Group Lead Data Science, AI/ML Engineering Location Bangalore, India (India GCC) Function Data, AI & Digital Innovation - Data Science, AI Engineering, ML Engineering & MLOps Reports To Jyoti Radhu - Director, Data, AI & Digital Innovation, GCC India Key Partners GenAI & ML leadership in Chicago and Toronto; offshore consulting partners

Role Summary

We are looking for a Group Lead to lead Data Science, AI Engineering, ML Engineering, and MLOps from our India GCC in Bangalore. This leader will build and mentor the engineering team, establish the delivery framework, and own delivery of Data science experiments, AI/ML solution and Platform .

How This Role Fits the Operating Model

1. Manage GCC deliverables across Data Science, AI Engineering and ML Engineering. Single point of ownership for what the India GCC delivers across disciplines - ideation, experimentation, planning, execution, quality, and timelines.
2. Ensure AI & ML platform stability with GCC engineers and consulting partners. Keep the enterprise AI/ML platform stable and reliable, using a combined workforce of GCC engineers and offshore consulting partners - with clear accountability regardless of who does the work.
3. Partner with Data Science, AI Engineering and ML Engineering leadership in North America. Operate as the GCC counterpart to leadership in Chicago and Toronto - aligned on priorities, patterns, and standards, with a regular operating rhythm in both directions.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead Data Science, AI Engineering, ML Engineering & MLOps from the GCC: own applied delivery of data science, AI and ML solutions built on the approved enterprise stack (Azure ML, Azure OpenAI Service, Snowflake Cortex, Copilot Studio).
• Lead Forward-Deployed Engineering (FDE) for GenAI delivery: run the FDE model - data scientists and engineers embedded directly with business teams to turn their problems into working GenAI solutions - owning how FDEs are assigned, how they engage, and the quality of what they ship.
• Mentor and grow the team: hire, coach, and develop data scientists, AI/ML engineers in Bangalore; set the technical bar and build future leads.
• Create the delivery framework: define how work moves from intake to production - standards for scoping, code quality, CI/CD, testing, evaluation, and release - so delivery is repeatable and predictable.
• Manage delivery: own commitments on scope, dates, quality, and cost; track progress, surface risks early, and course-correct visibly.
• Ensure the ML Platform and its SLAs: keep the enterprise AI/ML platform and pipelines reliable - MLOps, CI/CD, monitoring, incident response, cost management - and define, enforce, and report against SLAs for availability, support response, and delivery turnaround.
• Liaise with consulting partners: manage offshore consulting partners - onboarding, work allocation, quality review, and accountability for their deliverables.

Required Qualifications

• Hands-on experience delivering Data science, GenAI and ML solutions to production, ideally on Azure (Azure ML, Azure OpenAI Service, AKS, Azure DevOps).
• Strong MLOps background: containerization, CI/CD, deployment, monitoring, and reliability for ML/LLM systems.
• Experience with agentic/LLM application development (LangGraph or comparable frameworks) and strong production-quality Python.
• Proven people leadership: hiring, mentoring, and growing data scientists and engineers; comfortable operating in a forward-deployed model alongside business teams.
• Experience setting up delivery frameworks, SLAs, or operating processes for data science and engineering team.
• Experience managing vendors or consulting partners and holding them accountable for quality.
• Clear communicator, comfortable working across time zones with global leadership and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a GCC or hub-and-spoke operating model.
• CPG, retail, or other large-enterprise background.
• Experience with Snowflake Cortex, semantic views, and text-to-SQL agents in an enterprise setting.
• Experience implementing responsible AI practices (prompt injection defenses, PII handling, grounded-ness or hallucination prevention) in a brand-sensitive environment .

Location(s)

Bengaluru - Brookfield

Kraft Heinz is an Equal Opportunity Employer - Underrepresented Ethnic Minority Groups/Women/Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity and other protected classes .

Experience Level Senior Level