Sr Manager, Engineering Tech Lead

McDonald's Corporation • Chicago, IL

30d

About The Position

McDonald’s growth strategy, Accelerating the Arches, encompasses all aspects of our business as the leading global omni-channel restaurant brand. As the consumer landscape shifts we are using our competitive advantages to further strengthen our brand. One of our core growth strategies is to Double Down on the 3Ds (Delivery, Digital and Drive Thru). McDonald’s will accelerate technology innovation so 65M+ customers a day will experience a fast, easy experience, whether at one of our 25,000 and growing Drive thrus, through McDelivery, dine-in or takeaway. 

McDonald’s Global Technology is here to power tomorrow’s feel-good moments.  

That’s why you’ll find us at the forefront of transformative technology, exploring new and innovative ways to serve our millions of customers and spread happiness one delicious Hot Fudge Sundae-dipped fry at a time. Using AI, robotics and emerging tech, we’re digitizing the Golden Arches. Combine that with our unparalleled global scale, and we’re reshaping all areas of the business, industry and every community that is home to a McDonald’s restaurant. We face complex tech challenges every day. But that’s where our diverse and talented teams come in. They’re made up of the best and brightest from all over the globe, and they thrive in the space where feel-good meets fast-paced.  

Check out the McDonald’s  Global Technology Technical Blog to learn how technology and our global team are directly enabling the Accelerating the Arches strategy. 
Department OverviewThe Commercial Products & Platforms team develops digital experiences and global technology platforms that delight our customers and enable them to order on their terms—seamlessly, reliably, and conveniently across mobile, web, kiosks, and future channels.
As Senior Manager, Engineering, Conversational Commerce Platform & SRE, you will lead teams building and operating cutting-edge capabilities for ordering at the drive thru and beyond. You’ll shape the technical evolution of our platforms, working with external AI providers and internal teams to deliver best-in-class solutions. You will be a critical partner to product management, UX, architecture, and infrastructure stakeholders to ensure our solutions are performant, scalable, and built for the future.

Requirements

• At least 7 years of experience in hands-on technical roles with progressive growth in responsibilities, including software engineering, DevOps, and SRE.
• At least 5 years of experience leading engineering teams in Agile environments.
• Deep familiarity with CI/CD, DevOps, SRE, and cloud infrastructure best practices.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience with monitoring, observability, and incident response in production environments.

Nice To Haves

• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Google Cloud), Infrastructure as Code, and automation tools.
• Experience with conversational commerce platforms or similar digital customer experience solutions.
• Bachelor’s degree or higher in computer science, software engineering, or related technical fields.

Responsibilities

• Lead internal and vendor engineering teams responsible for the Conversational Commerce platform, ensuring high-quality technical solutions, platform scalability, and reliability.
• Oversee Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices, including deployment readiness, environment management, and incident response.
• Define and maintain support processes, deployment playbooks, and continuous improvement cycles based on live feedback.
• Lead war room support for real-time issue resolution and troubleshooting.
• Ensure high availability, reliability, and scalability of all platform services.
• Plan and coordinate releases, defining scope, objectives, and timelines in alignment with business priorities.
• Align stakeholders across development, QA, operations, and product teams for seamless delivery.
• Implement and carry out version control, coding standards, and branching strategies.
• Automate build, test, and deployment processes using industry-standard tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI).
• Maintain consistent pre-production and production environments.
• Drive Infrastructure as Code (IaC) adoption using tools like Terraform, Ansible, or CloudFormation.
• Integrate pipelines with external tools and platforms (e.g., Sesame, HME, Edge).
• Automate deployment processes and infrastructure management to ensure high availability and scalability.
• Implement real-time monitoring and observability (e.g., Datadog, Prometheus, Splunk, New Relic).
• Track performance, error rates, and system health post-deployment.
• Enforce quality gates, integrate DevSecOps practices, and perform vulnerability scans and license compliance checks.
• Define and automate rollback and recovery strategies for failed deployments.
• Serve as a subject matter expert (SME) for AWS and Google Cloud environments.
• Lead automation initiatives to optimize deployment, monitoring, and operations.
• Collaborate with product management, operations, and market teams to create innovative solutions that elevate the customer experience and augment crew efficiency.
• Serve as the technical liaison for integration partners and vendors, facilitating solution reviews, alignment meetings, and escalation management.

Benefits

• This position offers health and welfare benefits, a 401(k) plan, adoption assistance program, educational assistance program, flexible ways of working, and time off policies (including sick leave, parental leave, and vacation/PTO).
• This position is eligible for a bonus, calculated based on individual and company performance.
• This position is eligible for stock or other equity grants pursuant to McDonald’s long-term incentive plan.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees