Lead Software Engineer-Data Engineering

Career Area:

Job Description:

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc.

When you join Caterpillar yourejoining 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 dontjust 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.

About the Role

We are seeking a highly skilled Software Engineering Lead to lead a team of engineers in building Caterpillars next-generation Digital Manufacturing Data Platform. This platform is central to our Future of Manufacturing initiativedesigned to unify and operationalize data across design engineering production and supply chain operations.

The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in Big Data Data Warehousing real-time data movement and Snowflake-based architectures. You will architect and deliver scalable secure and intelligent data platforms that enable advanced analytics AI and digital twin capabilities across global manufacturing ecosystems.

Key Responsibilities

Team Leadership & Management

• Lead mentor and manage a team of data engineers and platform developers.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence collaboration and continuous learning.
• Drive Agile practices and ensure timely delivery of high-quality solutions.

Technical Strategy & Architecture

• Architect and oversee the development of scalable secure and resilient data platforms.
• Design and implement near real-time data movement and streaming architectures using tools like Kafka Spark and cloud-native services.
• Establish best practices in data modelling ETL/ELT data governance and metadata management.

Data Engineering & Snowflake Expertise

• Lead the development of robust data pipelines for ingestion transformation and delivery using Snowflake dbt and cloud-native tools.
• Optimize data storage retrieval and processing for performance reliability and cost-efficiency.
• Implement data quality frameworks lineage tracking and schema evolution strategies.

Big Data & Data Warehousing

• Build and maintain large-scale data lakes and data warehouses for structured and unstructured data.
• Design scalable data architectures to support manufacturing analytics predictive maintenance and supply chain optimization.

Cloud & Platform Engineering

• Leverage Azure and AWS services for data ingestion transformation and analytics.
• Deploy software using CI/CD tools (Azure DevOps preferred Jenkins AWS CloudFormation).
• Ensure platform scalability security and operational readiness across global deployments.

AI & Advanced Analytics Enablement

• Collaborate with Data Science and AI teams to operationalize ML models and analytics workflows.
• Promote integration of AI capabilities into data engineering pipelines (e.g. GenAI MCP ATA).
• Support real-time analytics and edge AI use cases in manufacturing environments.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Partner with product managers manufacturing SMEs and business leaders to understand requirements and deliver impactful data solutions.
• Communicate technical concepts to non-technical audiences and influence strategic decisions.

Must-Have Skills

• Proven experience in Big Data processing and Data Warehousing.
• Expertise in building end-to-end near real-time data pipelines for OLTP & OLAP.
• Strong architecture exposure for building robust scalable Data Platforms.
• Deep expertise in Snowflake SQL NoSQL and distributed data systems.
• Experience with data transformation tools (dbt Apache Spark Azure Data Factory).
• Strong analytical skills and solid knowledge of computer science fundamentals.
• Deep exposure to Azure and AWS cloud platforms.
• Good understanding of AI concepts and latest developments (Gen AI MCP ATA etc.).

Nice-to-Have Skills

• Knowledge of the NVIDIA ecosystem and its applications in data and AI.
• Experience building production-ready AI solutions and integrating with MLOps workflows.
• Familiarity with modern data visualization and BI tools (e.g. Power BI Tableau Looker).

Qualifications

• Bachelors or masters degree in computer science Engineering or related field.
• 10 years of experience in data engineering with at least 2 as team lead
• Demonstrated success in managing engineering teams and delivering complex data solutions.
• Excellent communication leadership and stakeholder management skills.
• This position requires working onsite five days a week.

Posting Dates:

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

Not ready to apply Join our Talent Community.