Group Lead, AI & MLE Ops

Job description

## Job Description **KRAFT HEINZ** Data, AI & Digital Innovation — India GCC **Group Lead Data Science, AI/ML Engineering** **Location** Bangalore, India (India GCC) **Function** Data, AI & Digital Innovation — Data Science, AI Engineering, ML Engineering & MLOps **Key Partners** GenAI & ML leadership in Chicago and Toronto; offshore consulting partners # **Role Summary** We are looking for a Group Lead to **lead Data Science, AI Engineering, ML Engineering, and MLOps from our India GCC in Bangalore.** This leader will build and mentor the engineering team, establish the delivery framework, and own delivery of Data science experiments, AI/ML solution and Platform . # **How This Role Fits the Operating Model** **1. Manage GCC deliverables across Data Science, AI Engineering and ML Engineering.** Single point of ownership for what the India GCC delivers across disciplines — ideation, experimentation, planning, execution, quality, and timelines. **2. Ensure AI & ML platform stability with GCC engineers and consulting partners.** Keep the enterprise AI/ML platform stable and reliable, using a combined workforce of GCC engineers and offshore consulting partners — with clear accountability regardless of who does the work. **3. Partner with Data Science, AI Engineering and ML Engineering leadership in North America.** Operate as the GCC counterpart to leadership in Chicago and Toronto — aligned on priorities, patterns, and standards, with a regular operating rhythm in both directions. # **Key Responsibilities** - **Lead Data Science, AI Engineering, ML Engineering & MLOps from the GCC:** own applied delivery of data science, AI and ML solutions built on the approved enterprise stack (Azure ML, Azure OpenAI Service, Snowflake Cortex, Copilot Studio). - **Lead Forward-Deployed Engineering (FDE) for GenAI delivery:** run the FDE model — data scientists and engineers embedded directly with business teams to turn their problems into working GenAI solutions — owning how FDEs are assigned, how they engage, and the quality of what they ship. - **Mentor and grow the team:** hire, coach, and develop data scientists, AI/ML engineers in Bangalore; set the technical bar and build future leads. - **Create the delivery framework:** define how work moves from intake to production — standards for scoping, code quality, CI/CD, testing, evaluation, and release — so delivery is repeatable and predictable. - **Manage delivery:** own commitments on scope, dates, quality, and cost; track progress, surface risks early, and course-correct visibly. - **Ensure the ML Platform and its SLAs:** keep the enterprise AI/ML platform and pipelines reliable — MLOps, CI/CD, monitoring, incident response, cost management — and define, enforce, and report against SLAs for availability, support response, and delivery turnaround. - **Liaise with consulting partners:** manage offshore consulting partners — onboarding, work allocation, quality review, and accountability for their deliverables. # **Required Qualifications** - Hands-on experience delivering Data science, GenAI and ML solutions to production, ideally on Azure (Azure ML, Azure OpenAI Service, AKS, Azure DevOps). - Strong MLOps background: containerization, CI/CD, deployment, monitoring, and reliability for ML/LLM systems. - Experience with agentic/LLM application development (LangGraph or comparable frameworks) and strong production-quality Python. - Proven people leadership: hiring, mentoring, and growing data scientists and engineers; comfortable operating in a forward-deployed model alongside business teams. - Experience setting up delivery frameworks, SLAs, or operating processes for data science and engineering team. - Experience managing vendors or consulting partners and holding them accountable for quality. - Clear communicator, comfortable working across time zones with global leadership and non-technical stakeholders. # **Preferred Qualifications** - Experience in a GCC or hub-and-spoke operating model. - CPG, retail, or other large-enterprise background. - Experience with Snowflake Cortex, semantic views, and text-to-SQL agents in an enterprise setting. - Experience implementing responsible AI practices (prompt injection defenses, PII handling, grounded-ness or hallucination prevention) in a brand-sensitive environment*.* ## Location(s) Bengaluru - Brookfield GCC **Kraft Heinz is an Equal Opportunity Employer – Underrepresented Ethnic Minority Groups/Women/Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity and other protected classes.**