Technical Project Manager, Artificial Intelligence

Job Description

We are looking for a talented, creative, and passionate Technical Project Manager who leads and delivers our new and ongoing initiatives to apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the QSR industry. This exciting and fast-paced role focuses on developing innovative solutions to transform the restaurant experience. The Technical Project Manager collaborates with engineering, operations, and finance functions within Yum! and our brands on a global level. This role is responsible for executing innovation projects starting from building prototypes, testing in lab setting, supporting in-store pilots, and partnering with brands and markets to plan for scale across 50,000+ Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Habit Burger restaurants in 150+ countries. The Technical Project Manager works directly with internal and external stakeholders, leveraging an ecosystem of suppliers, startups, partners, and sub-contractors. This role is based in Plano, Texas working within a hybrid work environment.

The Technical Project Manager is responsible for leading and delivering software and AI based innovation initiatives and drives impact across the Yum! business through conducting store pilots, sharing learnings internally, influencing priorities and decision making. With this role, the opportunities are endless. This will report to the Director of Software and AI.

Salary Range: $137,400 to $189,420 annually + bonus eligibility. This is the expected salary range for this position. Ultimately, in determining pay, we'll consider the successful candidate's location, experience, and other job-related factors

Responsibilities:

• Self-starter with hands-on experience in managing projects and supporting technology initiatives involving Artificial Intelligence and Data Science
• Strong passion to build know-how on technology, share learnings to educate, influence and inspire teams
• Partner with Yum and brand teams, vendor resources to build and pilot prototypes/solutions from end user standpoint and provide feedback to create better experiences for our customers and store team members
• Gather and share data, requirements, guidelines and best practices to ensure support functions including Network engineering and Security, have necessary information to approve testing solutions in-lab and deployment in-store

Project Management Skills:

• Manage multiple projects involving cross-functional teams and third parties, identifying/managing expectations and risks
• Experience with project management and SDLC tools (e.g. Jira, Smartsheet, Monday) to create project plans, track and report progress
• Document/review requirements to ensure alignment with stakeholder expectations
• Take ownership of initiatives and build RACI matrix to align on roles and responsibilities across teams to deliver on priorities
• Facilitate and run meetings effectively with focused agenda and outcome

Technical Skills:

• Hands on experience in AWS and other cloud platforms to gather, store, share documents and other contents
• Working experience in S3 storage and Identity Access Management services for information storage, retrieval, and management
• Engineering skills required to learn and support hardware integration, device set up in labs and conduct demos to leadership
• Implement processes to measure business success criteria and report pre & post pilot KPIs to influence decision making

People Management Skills:

• Experience working in large team setting that spans across multiple business units and time zones
• Ability to coach and manage a small team of individuals to build people capability including goal setting, providing feedback, reviewing individual development plan and conducting performance appraisal

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in engineering required (Master degree preferred)
• At least 8 years of experience managing technical software projects involving cross-functional teams
• Ability to support teams working in multiple time zones within and outside the U.S.
• Hands-on experience in multiple project management platforms, tracking & reporting tools, and software development lifecycle processes including Agile development
• Technical hands-on experience in AWS cloud, managing information in S3 buckets, provisioning users and access control
• Advanced level user of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint

Employment eligibility to work with Yum! in the U.S. is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for this position.

Benefits: Employees (and their eligible family members) may enroll in the following types of insurance coverage: medical, dental, vision, legal, and accidental death and dismemberment, as well as FSA/HSA (depending on enrolled medical plan). Yum! also provides short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance. Employees may enroll in our 401(k) plan. Yum! provides 4 weeks of vacation, paid sick leave, 10 paid holidays, a floating day off and 2 paid days for volunteer time each calendar year. To learn more about working at Yum! -Click here.

At Yum!, one of our core values is to Believe in ALL People. This means seeing the value in everyone and unlocking their full potential to be their best self. YUM! Brands, Inc. (including its subsidiaries Yum Restaurant Services Group, LLC ("YRSG") and Yum Connect, LLC ("Yum Digital and Technology")(collectively, "Yum") is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to equity, inclusion, and belonging for all dimensions of diversity. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, disability status, age, or any other protected characteristic. Yum! is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities or special needs.

US Job Seekers/Employees - Click here to view the "Know Your Rights" poster and supplement and the Pay Transparency Policy Statement.

About Us

The Yum! Brands story is simple. We have the four distinctive, relevant and easy global brands - KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and The Habit Burger Grill -- born from the hopes and dreams, ambitions and grit of passionate entrepreneurs. And we want more of this to create our future!

As the world's largest restaurant company we have a clear and compelling mission: to build the world's most love, trusted and fastest-growing restaurant brands. The key and not-so-secret ingredient in our recipe for growth is our unrivaled talent and culture, which fuels our results.

We're looking for talented, motivated, visionary and team-oriented leaders to join us as we elevate and personalize the customer experience across our 48,000 restaurants, operating in 145 countries and territories around the world!

We put pizza, chicken and tacos in the hands of customers through customized ordering, unique delivery approaches, app experiences, and click and collect services and consumer data analytics creating unique customer dining experiences - and we are only getting started.

Employees may work for a single brand and potentially grow to support all company-owned brands depending on their role. Regardless of where they work, as a company opening an average of 8 restaurants a day worldwide, the growth opportunities are endless. Taco Bell has been named of the 10 Most Innovative Companies in the World by Fast Company; Pizza Hut delivers more pizzas than any other pizza company in the world and KFC's still use its 75-year-old finger lickin' good recipe including secret herbs and spices to hand-bread its chicken every day.

Yum! and its brands have offices in Chicago, IL, Louisville KY, Irvine, CA, Plano, TX and other markets around the world. We don't just say we are a great place to work - our commitments to the world and our employees show it. Yum! has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index and ranked among the top 100 Best Corporate Citizens by Corporate Responsibility Magazine in addition to being named to the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index. Our employees work in an environment where the value of "believe in all people" is lived every day, enjoying benefits including but not limited to: 4 weeks' vacation PLUS holidays, sick leave and 2 paid days to volunteer at the cause of their choice and a dollar-for-dollar matching gift program; generous parental leave; competitive benefits including medical, dental, vision and life insurance as well as a 6% 401k match - all encompassed in Yum!'s world-famous recognition culture.