Principal Technical Product Manager - Autonomy Platform Capabilities

Career Area:

Technology, Digital and Data

Job Description:

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc.

When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other.  We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it.

Help Build the Future of Caterpillar

At Caterpillar, technology always has a purpose, which is to solve our customers’ toughest challenges. Through Cat Technology, we are solving problems by building the intelligence layer that connects machines, data, and people to make jobsites safer, more productive, and more sustainable. By combining deep domain expertise in physical systems with software, connectivity, autonomy, and AI, we deliver solutions that work in the real world—on real jobsites, at global scale.

You’ll build and deploy against one of the most unique data foundations—over 1.6 million connected assets generating real-world data daily.  These data and platform capabilities are enabling the development of AI models, edge computing architectures, and software systems that scale across fleets, products, and industries. The result will be a new generation of machines that continuously learn, improve, and deliver performance at scale.

Job Summary:

The Principal Technical Product Manager – Autonomy Platform Capabilities leads the alignment, adoption, and execution of strategic architectural and infrastructure initiatives that enable autonomous solutions at scale. This role serves as the primary orchestrator across architectural domains, driving convergence on system architecture, platform strategy, and foundational infrastructure investments that support multiple autonomy product and technology areas.

Working closely with Architecture, System Engineering, Platform Engineering, Data, Safety, Deployment, and Infrastructure teams, the Principal Technical Product Manager drives the development and evolution of architectural frameworks, platform capabilities, integration patterns, and shared infrastructure required to build scalable, interoperable, and sustainable autonomy solutions. The role aligns priorities, resolves cross-domain dependencies, and helps translate long-term architectural vision into actionable roadmaps and investment strategies.

The position partners closely with Technical Product Managers and engineering leaders to ensure architectural decisions, platform evolution, and infrastructure investments remain aligned with business objectives and product outcomes. By accelerating adoption of common architectural patterns, shared platforms, and foundational infrastructure, the Principal Technical Product Manager helps reduce complexity, increase capability reuse, and strengthen the technical foundations of the autonomy ecosystem.

What You Will Do:

Maximize the value of the autonomy ecosystem and define work across multiple scrum teams, platforms, and architectural domains. Collaborate with Technical Product Managers, Product Owners, System Engineering, Architecture, Platform Engineering, Data, Safety, Deployment, and Infrastructure teams to own and progressively elaborate system-level Epics, Features, architectural capabilities, and infrastructure requirements.

• Own definition of acceptance criteria for platform capabilities, architectural services, ecosystem infrastructure, and foundational technology investments.
• Drive alignment across domain Technical Product Managers to ensure product roadmaps leverage common architectures, platforms, and shared services.
• Define and communicate the long-term architectural vision, ecosystem strategy, and infrastructure roadmap supporting autonomous solutions.
• Partner with Architecture and Engineering teams to ensure technical solutions align with enterprise architecture principles and long-term scalability objectives.
• Establish and maintain architectural roadmaps that support future growth, interoperability, maintainability, security, and operational efficiency.
• Identify, manage, and communicate ecosystem-level dependencies, technical debt, architectural risks, and infrastructure constraints across multiple product domains.
• Drive tradeoff discussions and prioritization decisions balancing business value, platform adoption, architectural sustainability, technical complexity, and delivery timelines.
• Ensure autonomy products and services integrate effectively through common interfaces, standards, platforms, and architectural patterns.
• Establish and maintain visibility into platform adoption, ecosystem health, architectural maturity, infrastructure readiness, and strategic technology investments.
• Partner with Data, Safety, Deployment, and Infrastructure teams to ensure foundational services support system-level reliability, scalability, security, and operational readiness.
• Employee is also responsible for performing other job duties as assigned by Caterpillar management from time to time.

What You Will Have:

• Technical Product Management: Knowledge of product strategy, roadmap management, prioritization, requirements management, backlog development, and product lifecycle practices; ability to manage autonomous platform and infrastructure products that enable multiple business and technical domains (Required)
• Business Analysis: Knowledge of business analysis and the set of tasks, techniques and tools required to identify business, platform, ecosystem, and stakeholder needs; ability to align architecture and infrastructure investments to deliver long-term business value.
• Decision Making and Critical Thinking: Knowledge of the decision-making process and associated tools and techniques; ability to accurately analyze architectural tradeoffs, ecosystem dependencies, technology investments, risks, and strategic priorities to reach productive decisions based on informed judgment.
• Effective Communications: Understanding of effective communication concepts, tools and techniques; ability to effectively communicate architectural vision, platform strategy, infrastructure priorities, technical risks, and ecosystem roadmaps across technical and non-technical stakeholders..
• Systems Architecture and Infrastructure: Knowledge of systems architecture, distributed systems, cloud platforms, infrastructure services, integration frameworks, APIs, interface management, and technology ecosystems required to deliver scalable autonomous solutions.
• Platform and Ecosystem Leadership: Knowledge of platform product management, shared service development, ecosystem enablement, adoption strategies, and reusable capability development; ability to drive alignment across multiple products and technical organizations.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Knowledge of organizational alignment, stakeholder management, conflict resolution, and cross-functional execution; ability to drive collaboration and accountability across architecture, engineering, infrastructure, data, and product teams.
• Autonomous Systems Knowledge: Knowledge of autonomous systems, machine integration, safety, data platforms, deployment infrastructure, customer operations, and end-to-end solution delivery; ability to understand how architectural decisions impact overall mission success.

Consideration For Top Candidates:

• Lead complex autonomy platform and infrastructure initiatives by aligning multiple product domains around a common architectural vision and ecosystem strategy.
• At least 8 years of experience in Product Management, Platform Product Management, Technical Product Management, Systems Engineering, Architecture, Program Management, or related technical leadership roles.
• Demonstrated experience defining and executing architecture roadmaps, platform strategies, or ecosystem infrastructure initiatives supporting multiple products and teams.
• Experience driving architectural alignment, platform adoption, integration standards, and shared capability development across complex technical organizations.
• Strong understanding of systems architecture, cloud infrastructure, platform engineering, distributed systems, APIs, data platforms, and ecosystem development.
• Experience balancing short-term product delivery needs with long-term architectural sustainability and technology strategy.
• Experience influencing technical direction and investment decisions across engineering, architecture, infrastructure, and product leadership organizations.
• Experience preparing platforms and infrastructure for scaling, operational readiness, enterprise adoption, and future product expansion.
• Cat domain knowledge and experience supporting autonomous machines, connected products, advanced technology programs, digital platforms, or large-scale integrated ecosystems preferred.

Summary Pay Range:

$147,760.00 - $240,110.00

Compensation and benefits offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, job level, market location, job-related knowledge, skills, individual performance and experience. Please note that salary is only one component of total compensation at Caterpillar. 

Benefits:

Subject to plan eligibility, terms, and guidelines. This is a summary list of benefits.

• Medical, dental, and vision benefits*

• Paid time off plan (Vacation, Holidays, Volunteer, etc.)*

• 401(k) savings plans*

• Health Savings Account (HSA)*

• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)*

• Health Lifestyle Programs*

• Employee Assistance Program*

• Voluntary Benefits and Employee Discounts*

• Career Development*

• Incentive bonus*

• Disability benefits

• Life Insurance

• Parental leave

• Adoption benefits

• Tuition Reimbursement

* These benefits also apply to part-time employees

This position requires working onsite five days a week.

Relocation is available for this position.Visa Sponsorship is not available for this position.

Posting Dates:

Any offer of employment is conditioned upon the successful completion of a drug screen.

Caterpillar is an Equal Opportunity Employer, Including Veterans and Individuals with Disabilities.  Qualified applicants of any age are encouraged to apply.

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