Principal Engineer [T500-17206]

About McDonald’s:

One of the world’s largest employers with locations in more than 100 countries, McDonald’s Corporation has corporate opportunities in Hyderabad. Our global offices serve as dynamic innovation and operations hubs, designed to expand McDonald's global talent base and in-house expertise. Our new office in Hyderabad will bring together knowledge across business, technology, analytics, and AI, accelerating our ability to deliver impactful solutions for the business and our customers across the globe.

Position Summary:

Principal Engineer:

The Platform Engineering sub-job family focuses on designing, building, and maintaining scalable, secure, and high-performance data platforms that enable seamless data integration, accessibility, and governance across the organization. Team members in this family work to enhance platform efficiency, automate operations, and ensure data integrity, driving the foundation for data-driven decision-making and innovation. The Principal Platform Engineering will define and execute the strategic vision for data and analytics platforms, ensuring alignment with business goals while prioritizing initiatives that ensure compliance, security, and scalability.

Who we’re looking for:

Primary Responsibilities

• Strategic Vision & Alignment – Develop and drive a strategic vision for data and analytics platforms, ensuring alignment with the company’s overall goals and objectives.
• Backlog Management & Prioritization – Lead the creation and management of the product backlog, prioritizing initiatives to ensure timely delivery of key platform capabilities.
• Compliance, Privacy & Security – Ensure that all platform initiatives adhere to compliance, privacy, and security standards, safeguarding organizational data.
• Cross-functional Collaboration – Work closely with business leaders, engineers, and data teams to ensure platform capabilities meet evolving business needs and drive value.
• Continuous Improvement – Foster a culture of continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to enhance platform performance, scalability, and functionality.
• Level of Skill: Influence without direct exercise of command; persuasion required to effect change
• Primary Audience: Internal
• Nature of Interaction: Engages in communication with individuals who may hold differing perspectives but share a common interest, primarily motivated by a shared goal of finding a resolution.
• Level of Skill: Change significantly by enhancing entire existing processes, systems and/or products
• Complexity: Innovation is complex; solutions to problems and issues require consideration of impact on two of three dimensions (operational, financial, human capital)
• Knowledge: Requires advanced/well-developed skills and expertise within a specific professional discipline; ability to integrate theory & principles with organizational practices
• Geographic Breadth: All regions

Skills & Experience Required

Technical Expertise:

• 10+ years of experience in data platforms, cloud infrastructure, or platform engineering.
• Deep expertise in cloud platforms (GCP/AWS/ Azure – GCP/AWS Preferred) and cloud-native technologies (Kubernetes, Terraform, Serverless).
• Strong background in distributed systems, high-performance computing, and data infrastructure.
• Hands-on experience with big data frameworks (Apache Spark, Flink, Beam) and modern data lakehouses.
• Proficiency in programming languages such as SQL and “Python/Java/Scala”, with expertise in API development and microservices.

Platform Engineering & Automation:

• Experience building and scaling data platforms, pipelines, and real-time streaming architectures.
• Strong understanding of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools (Terraform) and CI/CD pipelines (Github, Jenkins).
• Expertise in containerization, orchestration, and automation for platform reliability.
• Experience implementing monitoring, logging, and observability (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry).

Data Security & Governance:

• Strong understanding of data security, compliance, and governance best practices.
• Experience with identity and access management (IAM), encryption, and data masking techniques.
• Knowledge of GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and industry-specific data regulations.

Problem-Solving & Thought Leadership:

• Proven ability to architect, optimize, and troubleshoot large-scale distributed systems.
• Ability to drive innovation, evaluate emerging technologies, and lead proof-of-concepts (PoCs).
• Excellent system design and scalability expertise, ensuring platform resilience.

Collaboration & Leadership:

• Strong ability to influence and collaborate with engineering, data science, DevOps, and leadership teams.
• Experience mentoring senior engineers and technical teams, fostering a culture of innovation and excellence.
• Effective communicator with the ability to simplify complex technical concepts for business stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in retail, CPG, or QSR industries.
• Background in AI/ML platforms, real-time analytics, and data observability.
• Relevant certifications in cloud, DevOps, or data engineering (e.g., Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer, AWS Certified Solutions Architect, CKA).

Work location: Hyderabad, India

Work pattern: Full time role.

Work mode: Hybrid.

Additional Information:

McDonald’s is committed to providing qualified individuals with disabilities with reasonable accommodations to perform the essential functions of their jobs. McDonald’s provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to sex, sex stereotyping, pregnancy (including pregnancy, childbirth, and medical conditions related to pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding), race, color, religion, ancestry or national origin, age, disability status, medical condition, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, protected military or veteran status, citizenship status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

McDonald’s Capability Center India Private Limited (“McDonald’s in India”) is a proud equal opportunity employer and is committed to hiring a diverse workforce and sustaining an inclusive culture. At McDonald’s in India, employment decisions are based on merit, job requirements, and business needs, and all qualified candidates are considered for employment. McDonald’s in India does not discriminate based on race, religion, colour, age, gender, marital status, nationality, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, political affiliation, veteran status, disability status, medical history, parental status, genetic information, or any other basis protected under state or local laws.

Nothing in this job posting or description should be construed as an offer or guarantee of employment.