Data Science Senior Pod Lead

The Senior AI Research Pod Leader translates enterprise and product strategy into research agendas and executable technical plans ensures adherence to best practices and Responsible AI principles aligned to Caterpillar Values and mentors pod members to build deep technical scientific and professional capability. The role works closely with AI Product Owners AI Architects engineering partners the IT organisation universities and academic collaborators and business stakeholders to explore validate and transition advanced AI concepts that can deliver future business value.

Responsibilities Include but not limited too.

Research & Technical Leadership

• Own the technical and research direction for the pod spanning data science machine learning and advanced AI research including feature engineering model and algorithm selection experimental design evaluation and transition approaches.

• Define and guide research programs and experiments balancing hypothesisdriven exploration with enterprise relevance and downstream applicability.

• Ensure solutions and research outcomes are scalable maintainable and aligned with enterprise architecture data security and engineering standards.

• Review challenge and approve technical designs experiments research findings and AI artefacts produced by the pod.

• Drive efficiency and quality through the adoption of Generative AI tooling automation reusable research patterns and shared platforms.

• Establish expectations for scientific rigor documentation reproducibility and evaluation consistency.

Delivery Experimentation & Transition

• Lead podlevel planning and execution across research and delivery activities aligning exploration experimentation and milestones to the broader product technology and IT roadmaps.

• Balance experimentation with execution ensuring effective transition from research and proofofconcept work to productionready or downstream engineering solutions.

• Partner with the IT organisation to ensure research outcomes can be operationalised supported and scaled within enterprise platforms and environments.

• Actively identify manage and communicate technical risks research uncertainties dependencies and tradeoffs.

• Maintain accountability for outcomes including research quality delivery commitments technical debt management and operational readiness where applicable.

People & Research Capability Leadership

• Provide daytoday and seniorlevel technical leadership coaching and mentoring for pod members.

• Support development of skills across data science machine learning Generative AI advanced AI research methods and software engineering practices.

• Foster a culture of collaboration accountability learning peer review and continuous improvement within the pod.

• Contribute input into performance conversations through technical and researchfocused feedback and capability assessment.

Stakeholder IT & Academic Collaboration and Thought Leadership

• Partner closely with AI Product Owners to translate business problems and longterm strategy into clear research themes analytical objectives and value hypotheses.

• Collaborate closely with the IT organisation to align AI research initiatives with enterprise platforms data foundations security infrastructure and operating models.

• Influence and inform IT architecture tooling and platform strategy based on emerging AI research needs and futurestate requirements.

• Work with IT delivery operations and platform teams to establish pathways from research to supported enterprise solutions.

• Collaborate with universities and academic research institutions to shape joint research agendas cosupervise research projects and accelerate exploration of frontier AI topics.

• Support and sponsor joint research initiatives including funded research programs student projects internships and postgraduate collaborations where appropriate.

• Engage with academic partners on publications conferences workshops and research dissemination balancing openness with enterprise IP and confidentiality requirements.

• Communicate technical and research concepts progress risks and outcomes effectively to nontechnical and executive stakeholders.

• Collaborate with platform data engineering MLOps software engineering architecture and IT operations teams to influence future AI platforms and capabilities.

• Contribute to internal and external thought leadership including technical documentation whitepapers patents and research publications where appropriate.

Quality Governance & Responsible AI

• Ensure models research outputs and AI solutions meet quality performance security reliability and compliance standards.

• Apply Responsible AI principles consistently across research experimentation IT collaboration academic collaboration and delivery lifecycles.

• Ensure appropriate documentation traceability and governance for research artefacts experiments and decisions.

Continuous Improvement & Innovation

• Stay current with advances in data science machine learning Generative AI and emerging AI research areas.

• Leverage insights from academic IT and industry research communities to inform enterprise AI strategy and practice.

• Recommend improvements to tools processes and standards across the data science AI research and IT enablement practices.

• Contribute to communities of practice shared standards and reusable assets across the enterprise.

Qualifications & Education

• Bachelors degree in data science computer science engineering mathematics statistics or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).

• Advanced degree (Masters or PhD preferred) in artificial intelligence machine learning engineering mathematics physics or a closely related field or equivalent depth of practical research experience is required.

Skill Descriptors

Advanced AI & Research Expertise

• Strong understanding of AI machine learning and Generative AI concepts risks and opportunities.

• Demonstrated depth in one or more advanced or emerging areas such as multimodal models embodied or physical AI reinforcement learning simulationbased learning or quantuminspired algorithms.

• Ability to design interpret and guide experiments and model evaluations to inform technical and research decisions.

Product IT & Strategy Acumen

• Ability to translate business technology and IT strategy into outcomedriven research themes product goals and measurable value hypotheses.

• Experience balancing longterm research investment with nearterm delivery and enterprise operability.

Agile & Delivery Ways of Working

• Experience working in Agile or iterative delivery environments including sprint planning backlog refinement and incremental delivery.

• Ability to balance structured delivery with exploratory research work.

Communication

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical and research concepts to nontechnical stakeholders.

Problem Solving & Systems Thinking

• Strong problemsolving skills with the ability to think critically and creatively.

• Systemslevel thinking across algorithms data software infrastructure and operational contexts.

Programming & Technical Literacy

• Knowledge of relevant programming languages tools and prompt engineering.

• Programming literacy sufficient to collaborate effectively with engineering and IT teams; handson coding is not a primary responsibility but technical credibility is expected.

Ethics & Responsibility

• Strong understanding of AI risks limitations and ethical considerations.

• Ability to govern and guide AI research and solution development in line with Responsible AI principles.

Compensation & Benefits:
Competitive salary based on degree and professional industry working experience. The Total Rewards package includes:

• Competitive remuneration package

• Attractive Bonus and Share options

• Career development with global prospects

• A strong commitment to safety and your wellbeing

• An inclusive workplace culture focused on quality customer service and the environment

• A commitment to diversity and inclusion equal opportunity and equal outcome

• SMART spending APP

• The opportunity to do truly meaningful work in a supportive constructive culture that encourages you to make the most of your talents.

Additional Information:

Caterpillar of Australia is not currently hiring individuals for this position who now or in future require sponsorship for employment-based non-immigrant and immigrant visas. However as a global company Caterpillar offers many job opportunities outside of Australia which can be found through our employment website road to success begins with a Caterpillar career. By joining the Caterpillar team youll discover that working for a global leader creates endless opportunities for you.