Career Area:

Engineering

Job Description:

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc.

When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other.  We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Solution Design

• Own the technical direction for data science and AI solutions, including feature engineering, model selection, evaluation, and deployment approaches.
• Ensure solutions are scalable, maintainable, and aligned with enterprise architecture, data, and engineering standards.
• Review, challenge, and approve technical designs, experiments, and model outputs produced by the pod.
• Drive efficiency and quality through the adoption of GenAI tooling, automation, and reusable patterns.

Delivery & Execution

• Lead pod-level planning and execution to meet sprint and increment commitments aligned to the product roadmap.
• Balance experimentation with delivery, ensuring effective transition from proof-of-concept to production-ready solutions.
• Actively identify, manage, and communicate technical risks, dependencies, and trade-offs.
• Maintain accountability for delivery outcomes, technical debt management, and operational readiness.

People & Capability Leadership

• Provide day-to-day technical leadership, coaching, and mentoring for pod members.
• Support development of skills across data science, machine learning, GenAI, and software engineering practices.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, learning, and continuous improvement within the pod.
• Contribute to performance conversations through technical feedback and capability assessment.

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Partner closely with AI Product Owners to translate business problems into clear analytical, modeling, and delivery objectives.
• Communicate technical concepts, progress, risks, and outcomes effectively to non-technical stakeholders.
• Collaborate with platform, data engineering, MLOps, and software engineering teams.

Quality, Governance & Responsible AI

• Ensure models and analytics meet quality, performance, security, reliability, and compliance standards.
• Apply Responsible AI principles throughout the solution lifecycle.
• Ensure appropriate documentation and traceability.

Continuous Improvement & Innovation

• Stay current with advances in data science, ML, and GenAI techniques
• Recommend improvements to tools, processes, and standards across the data science practice
• Contribute to community of practice activities, standards, and reusable assets

Degree Requirement

Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, data science, business, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).  Advanced degree (Master’s or PhD preferred) in artificial intelligence, machine learning, engineering, mathematics, physics, or a closely related field considered an advantage.

Skill Descriptors

• AI Product Acumen: Working knowledge of AI/ML and Generative AI concepts sufficient to make informed product trade-off decisions (not expected to design or code models).
• Data-Informed Decision Making: Ability to interpret analytics, experiments, and model performance metrics to guide prioritization and roadmap decisions
• Ability to translate business strategy into outcome-driven product goals and measurable value hypotheses
• Agile Product Ownership: Experience working in Agile teams with hands-on ownership of product backlogs and sprint planning
• Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Problem-Solving: Strong problem-solving skills, with the ability to think critically and creatively to develop innovative solutions.

Level Working Knowledge

• Identifies and documents specific problems and resolution alternatives.
• Examines a specific problem and understands the perspective of each involved stakeholder.
• Develops alternative techniques for assessing accuracy and relevance of information.
• Helps to analyze risks and benefits of alternative approaches and obtain decision on resolution.
• Uses fact-finding techniques and diagnostic tools to identify problems.
• Knowledge of Mining Industry and Mining related software.

Software Development Life Cycle

• Knowledge of software development life cycle; ability to use a structured methodology for delivering and managing new or enhanced software products to the marketplace.
• Describes similarities and differences of life cycle for new product development vs. new release.
• Identifies common issues, problems, and considerations for each phase of the life cycle.
• Works with a formal life cycle methodology.
• Explains phases, activities, dependencies, deliverables, and key decision points.
• Interprets product development plans and functional documentation.

Artificial Intelligence

• Knowledge of AI and Generative AI concepts, risks, and opportunities; ability to govern and guide AI product development to achieve business outcomes while adhering to responsible AI principles.
• Explains the methodology and technologies of artificial intelligence.
• Describes the concepts, functions and features of artificial intelligence (AI).
• Locates relevant resources to obtain the latest information on artificial intelligence.
• Cites examples of successful implementation of AI technologies and systems.

Programming

Knowledge of relevant programming languages and tools; ability to test, write, design, debug, troubleshoot, and maintain source codes and computer programs.

• Prompt engineering
• Programming literacy sufficient to collaborate effectively with engineering teams; hands-on coding is not a primary responsibility.

Technical Troubleshooting

Knowledge of technical troubleshooting approaches, tools, and techniques; ability to anticipate, recognize, and resolve technical issues on hardware, software, application, or operation.

• Discovers, analyzes, and resolves hardware, software, or application problems.
• Works with vendor-specific diagnostic guides, tools, and utilities.
• Handles calls related to product features, applications, and compatibility standards.
• Analyzes code, logs, and current systems as part of advanced troubleshooting.
• Records and reports specific technical problems, solving processes, and tools that have been used.

Note:
This Job Description is intended as a general guide to the job duties for this position and is intended for the purpose of establishing the specific salary grade. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as an exhaustive summary of all responsibilities, duties, and effort required of employees assigned to this job. At the discretion of management, this description may be changed at any time to address the evolving needs of the organization. It is expressly not intended to be a comprehensive list of “essential job functions” as that term is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Posting Dates:

March 2, 2026 - March 15, 2026

Caterpillar is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  Qualified applicants of any age are encouraged to apply

Not ready to apply? Join our Talent Community.