Senior Functional Lead

Tata Technologies; Normal (IL); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology company is seeking a Senior Functional Lead - AI who will bridge the gap between business and engineering teams. In this hybrid role, you'll help translate business objectives into actionable specifications for AI agents. Candidates should have over 7 years of experience in functional leadership within the tech sector, expert-level skills in process modeling, and a strong understanding of AI products and agile methodologies. This dynamic position offers an exciting opportunity for innovation in AI solutions.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience as a Functional Lead, Technical Product Owner, or Business Systems Analyst.
• Expert-level skill in visualizing complex workflows.
• Ability to read and understand technical documentation, including API specifications.
• Experience working on AI products, defining logic for autonomous agents.
• Proven track record of working in iterative environments.

Responsibilities

• Translate high-level business goals into precise, step-by-step functional specifications.
• Identify and document specific data inputs required for the agent to function.
• Define functional constraints and 'rules of engagement' for the AI agent.
• Serve as the daily point of contact for the development team.
• Validate that the built agent follows the defined logic.

Skills

Process Modeling & Logic Design

Technical Data Fluency

AI & Agent Experience

Agile Execution

Tools

Visio

Lucidchart

Jira

SAP

AWS

SQL

Python

ABAP

Job description

Overview

The Senior Functional Lead - AI acts as the primary bridge between business stakeholders and the AI engineering team. In this role, you will thrive in a fast-paced, hybrid environment—balancing the agility required for rapid AI innovation with the rigor needed for enterprise-grade solutions.

Your core focus is execution: translating high-level business goals into detailed, actionable functional specifications for autonomous agents. You will be responsible for deconstructing complex workflows into logical steps, mapping necessary data inputs, and defining the specific behaviors the agents must follow. You are not just managing a timeline; you are designing the functional blueprints that allow our engineering team to build continuously and effectively.

Key Responsibilities

• Define Agent Logic & Workflows: Translate high-level business goals into precise, step-by-step functional specifications. Create detailed flowcharts, decision trees, and state diagrams to define exactly how the autonomous agent should handle different scenarios, exceptions, and edge cases.
• Data Mapping & Integration Requirements: Identify and document the specific data inputs required for the agent to function. Analyze API specifications and data structures to define source-to-target mapping, ensuring the engineering team connects the agent to the right information.
• Agent Behavior & Context: Define the functional constraints and "rules of engagement" for the AI (e.g., guardrails, tone, and prompt strategies) to ensure the agent operates autonomously within safe boundaries.
• Support Engineering Execution: Serve as the daily point of contact for the development team to clarify requirements. Review the technical implementation against your functional specs to ensure the build matches the design and unblock the team when requirements are ambiguous.
• Functional Acceptance Testing: Validate that the built agent follows the logic you defined. Create and execute test cases based on real-world business scenarios to verify the agent's decision-making accuracy before deployment.

Qualifications

• Experience: 7+ years of experience as a Functional Lead, Technical Product Owner, or Business Systems Analyst with a focus on building complex software solutions.
• Process Modeling & Logic Design: Expert-level skill in visualizing complex workflows. Must be able to use tools (like Visio or Lucidchart) to create detailed decision trees and flow diagrams that developers can code from directly.
• Technical Data Fluency: Ability to read and understand technical documentation, including API specifications (e.g., Swagger/OpenAPI) and data payloads (JSON/XML). You do not need to code, but you must be able to map data fields from source systems to agent inputs accurately.
• AI & Agent Experience: Demonstrated experience working on AI products, specifically defining logic for autonomous agents, LLMs, or rule-based automation systems.
• Agile Execution: Proven track record of working in iterative environments. You must be comfortable taking vague requirements and quickly turning them into structured user stories (Jira) to keep the engineering team moving.

Preferred Qualifications

• Enterprise Systems: Experience working with SAP (S/4HANA or ECC) or other large-scale ERP financial systems is beneficial.
• Cloud Ecosystems: Familiarity with AWS cloud services and how agents are deployed in a cloud environment.
• Programming: Basic knowledge of SQL, Python, ABAP