Lead Software Engineer- Data Engineer

Career Area:

Technology, Digital and Data

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.

Software Engineering Lead – Data Platform

About the Role

We are seeking a highly skilled Software Engineering Lead – Data Platform to lead the development of Caterpillar’s next-generation Digital Manufacturing Data Platform. This platform enables large-scale data ingestion, transformation, and analytics across manufacturing, supply chain, and engineering ecosystems.

The ideal candidate will bring deep expertise in data engineering, large-scale data ingestion, AWS-based architectures, and Snowflake, along with strong leadership and software engineering discipline.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership & Delivery

Lead and mentor a team of data engineers and platform developers

Drive Agile execution and ensure predictable, high-quality delivery

Establish engineering best practices, code quality, and CI/CD standards

Data Platform & Architecture

Architect scalable and secure data platforms on AWS

Design robust data ingestion frameworks for batch and near real-time pipelines

Define best practices in data modeling, governance, and metadata management

Data Engineering & Ingestion

Lead design and development of scalable ingestion pipelines (structured and unstructured data)

Build and optimize Snowflake-based data platforms for performance and cost

Enable ingestion of diverse sources (databases, APIs, files, streaming data)

Cloud & Platform Engineering

Leverage AWS services (S3, Glue, Lambda, EMR, Redshift, etc.) for end-to-end pipelines

Implement CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps / Jenkins

Ensure system scalability, resiliency, and operational readiness

Software Engineering Excellence

Enforce software engineering principles (modular design, code quality, testing, version control)

Drive automation and continuous improvement

Promote reusable frameworks for ingestion and transformation

Stakeholder Collaboration

Partner with product managers, SMEs, and business stakeholders

Translate business needs into scalable data solutions

Must-Have Skills

10+ years of experience in Data Engineering / Data Platform roles

Strong experience in AWS data ecosystem (S3, Glue, Lambda, EMR, Redshift)

Deep expertise in Snowflake (architecture, optimization, data modeling)

Strong programming skills in Python and SQL

Extensive experience with data ingestion pipelines and ETL/ELT frameworks

Exposure to real-time streaming (Kafka, Spark Streaming)

Experience with CI/CD tools (GitHub, Jenkins, AWS CloudFormation etc.)

Solid understanding of distributed systems and scalable architectures

Strong foundation in software engineering principles (Git, testing, design patterns)

Experienced in working with Agile teams

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.

Use AI extensively in building and testing Data Ingestion and Data pipeline

Nice-to-Have Skills

Experience with Graph Databases (Neo4j, Neptune)

Experience with Vector Databases (Milvus, OpenSearch)

Knowledge of NVIDIA ecosystem and RAPIDS (cuDF, cuML, cuGraph)

Experience integrating AI/ML pipelines or GenAI workflows

Qualifications

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science / Engineering

Proven track record in leading engineering teams and delivering at scale

Strong leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills

This position requires working onsite five days a week.

Relocation is available for this position.

Posting Dates:

August 7, 2026 - August 20, 2026

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