Senior AI Engineer

PepsiCo · Plano · $93,500–$156,450 (stated in the posting)

Overview

We are seeking a Senior AI Engineer role to build and operate an internal platform that enables teams to deliver agent orchestration solutions with high velocity and low operational risk. The role treats the platform as an internal product—providing self-service golden paths (standardized, end-to-end workflows), reusable templates, and API-driven automation that reduces developer cognitive load and improves delivery consistency. The role owns the developer experience for provisioning environments, deploying services/workflows, policy-compliant runtime exposure via gateways, and operational readiness through observability and SLO-based reliability practices.

Responsibilities

Internal Platform as a Product: Self-Service & Golden Paths (30%)

Build and maintain API-driven self-service capabilities that allow delivery teams to deploy and operate services/workflows with reduced lead time and stack complexity. (Execute/Consult)
Design and deliver golden paths (paved roads) for common workflows (service creation, environment provisioning, deployment, rollback, observability enablement), reducing cognitive load and improving compliance by default. (Execute/Consult)

Environment Provisioning, Standardization & Guardrails (20%)

Provide standardized environment templates (non-prod/prod) with tenant isolation patterns and secure defaults; minimize drift via code-reviewed configuration and drift detection. (Execute/Consult)
Implement secure-by-default platform guardrails (approved base images, default policies, standard logging/metrics/traces) to reduce operational risk and audit gaps. (Consult/Execute)

CI/CD Enablement & Release Safety (20%)

Provide reusable CI/CD templates and promotion gates (build, test, security scans, deploy) that delivery teams can adopt with minimal customization, increasing delivery consistency. (Execute/Consult)
Establish standardized rollout/rollback practices and deployment verification steps as part of the golden paths (release safety as a default). (Consult/Execute)

Observability, SLOs & Operational Readiness (20%)

Define and operationalize SLIs/SLOs for platform services; ensure telemetry export (metrics/logs/traces) and actionable runbooks for incidents and rollbacks. (Consult/Execute)
Partner with SRE/operations to support availability, latency, performance, change management, monitoring/alerting, and emergency response for platform services. (Consult/Execute)

Developer Enablement & Feedback Loop (10%)

Run continuous feedback loops with platform users (product/agent teams) to refine platform experiences, improve golden paths, and publish adoption/usage insights. (Consult/Execute)
Deliver enablement: documentation, examples, onboarding playbooks, and office-hours to increase adoption and reduce ticket-based ops. (Execute/Consult)

Decision-Making Autonomy: High-moderate — owns platform experience and implementation choices within enterprise guardrails; escalates enterprise policy/security exceptions.
Supervision Required: Moderate-low — periodic alignment with platform lead/architect and security/SRE stakeholders.
Complexity of Role: High — multi-tenant internal platform with reliability targets and cross-team adoption responsibilities.
Cross-Functional Interactions: Yes — continuous interaction with DevX, SRE, security/identity, API gateway, and delivery teams.

Compensation and Benefits:

The expected compensation range for this position is between $93,500 - $156,450.
Location, confirmed job-related skills, experience, and education will be considered in setting actual starting salary. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range during the hiring process.
Bonus based on performance and eligibility target payout is 10% of annual salary paid out annually.
Paid time off subject to eligibility, including paid parental leave, vacation, sick, and bereavement.
In addition to salary, PepsiCo offers a comprehensive benefits package to support our employees and their families, subject to elections and eligibility: Medical, Dental, Vision, Disability, Health, and Dependent Care Reimbursement Accounts, Employee Assistance Program (EAP), Insurance (Accident, Group Legal, Life), Defined Contribution Retirement Plan.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor’s in ML/CS/Engineering or equivalent experience required.
Master’s preferred
8 year experience with AI/DS/ML required.
Proven experience building internal platforms / developer tooling and operating production services.

Required Expertise

Platform engineering mindset: internal platform as product; self-service workflows and templates that reduce cognitive load
CI/CD + release engineering: reusable pipelines, policy checks, promotion gates, safe rollout/rollback patterns
Infrastructure automation: IaC, environment templating, standardization, drift control (tool choice per enterprise standards)
Observability & reliability: SLIs/SLOs, runbooks, monitoring/alerting fundamentals
Security-by-default: SSO/OIDC concepts, RBAC/ABAC awareness, secrets management hygiene, audit logging expectations
Strong stakeholder collaboration and developer enablement (docs, examples, onboarding)

Differentiating Competencies

Ownership: delivers platform outcomes end-to-end; prioritizes reliability and adoption (not just features)
Customer focus: treats developers as customers; improves DevEx through simplified workflows and paved roads
Communication: clear release readiness, operational risk framing, and adoption reporting
Adaptability: responds to changing constraints (security, tooling, runtime needs) without breaking platform consistency
Proactiveness & initiative: identifies toil and standardizes away repetitive work through templates/automation
Strategic thinking (emerging): sequences platform investments to maximize adoption and reduce cognitive load

EEO Statement

Our Company will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and all other applicable laws, including but not limited to, San Francisco Police Code Sections 4901-4919, commonly referred to as the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance; and Chapter XVII, Article 9 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code, commonly referred to as the Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or disability status.

PepsiCo is an Equal Opportunity Employer: Female / Minority / Disability / Protected Veteran / Sexual Orientation / Gender Identity / Age

If you'd like more information about your EEO rights as an applicant under the law, please download the available EEO is the Law & EEO is the Law Supplement documents. View PepsiCo EEO Policy.

Please view our Pay Transparency Statement