Innovation Tech Lead

Role Overview

At The Coca‑Cola Company, digital innovation is accelerating how we connect people to our brands and create value across markets. We are shaping a global technology ecosystem that empowers data‑driven decision‑making, intelligent automation, and next‑generation consumer experiences. The Senior Director, Innovation Technology Lead plays a critical role in advancing this ambition— leading the engineering strategy, technical execution and evolution of Coca-Cola’s innovation technology portfolio, translating business priorities into scalable digital products, AI enabled capabilities and enterprise platforms that drive global growth and innovation.

This role partners across Product Leadership, Data, and Technology teams to enable scalable technical solutions supporting business growth and operational excellence. The successful candidate combines deep engineering expertise with the ability to translate complex product goals into actionable technology plans. Working within Coca-Cola’s global Digital organization, they will drive the engineering strategy and execution of AI-powered innovation capabilities, leveraging large language models, machine learning, and modern data platforms to enhance innovation science, accelerate experimentation, and improve innovation outcomes.

Ideal candidates will bring technical fluency, hands‑on problem‑solving skills, and collaborative leadership. This position offers the opportunity to work across a diverse global environment at the forefront of digital transformation within one of the world’s most iconic brands.

What You’ll Do for Us

• Own the technology strategy that enables Coca-Cola’s innovation agenda, including AI-powered products, decision intelligence capabilities, experimentation platforms and emerging technology investments.

• Lead the engineering teams responsible for building, operating and scaling innovation products and shared capabilities. Foster a high-performance engineering culture through coaching, talent development, technical leadership and continuous learning while managing relationships with critical technology partners to accelerate innovation outcomes.

• Partner with Product, Data and Business leaders to translate innovation priorities into secure, scalable products and platforms – guiding technical decisions and ensuring successful delivery of centralized innovation capabilities across global markets.

• Establish a culture of engineering excellence by advancing modern software engineering, AI engineering, platform reliability, security, observability and operating practices. Apply technical metrics, insights, and feedback loops to measure and improve developer experience and system efficiency, contributing to Coca‑Cola’s ongoing evolution toward intelligent digital operations.

• Lead delivery across a portfolio of innovation products and platforms, partnering with product management to align technology investments with business and product priorities. Drive informed decisions on technical tradeoffs, manage cross-team dependencies, and ensure solutions are secure by design, scalable, resilient and adaptable within an evolving technology ecosystem.

• Strengthen collaboration across Product, Engineering, Data, Security, Architecture and Innovation business teams, fostering shared accountability, knowledge exchange, and the successful adoption and scaling of innovation capabilities across the enterprise.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

• Demonstrated experience delivering AI-enabled products, platforms or decision intelligence capabilities from concept through enterprise-scale deployment.

• Deep understanding of modern data and AI engineering practices, including data pipeline architecture, MLOps frameworks, and CI/CD principles for ML and software components.

• Proven ability to influence technical and investment decisions with senior business and technology leaders, translating complex technical concepts into clear business outcomes.

• Experience building and scaling shared platforms, services or technical capabilities that support multiple products, teams or business functions.

• Extensive experience (10+ years) in software engineering, data engineering, or technical leadership within enterprise‑scale digital environments.

• Proven capability in designing and operationalizing cloud‑native architectures in Azure or other major platforms (AWS, GCP).

• Proficiency in Python and familiarity with application development models including React, REST or GraphQL APIs, and microservices architecture.

• Familiarity with secure and compliant deployment frameworks for multi‑market data and application environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting technology solutions in consumer products, retail, or marketing analytics ecosystems.

• Practical knowledge of region‑specific data governance and permissioning in global technology environments.

• Background integrating AI‑enabled components into scalable enterprise platforms aligned with commercial product strategies.

What We’ll Do for You

• Enable partnership across global teams dedicated to shaping Coca‑Cola’s digital and AI transformation journey.

• Provide access to advanced technology environments and professional development focused on cloud, data, and machine learning innovation.

• Offer opportunities to influence enterprise technology integration that advances consumer connection and business agility worldwide.

• Support continuous learning, collaboration, and experimentation in a global setting that values curiosity, creativity, and inclusion.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class.