IS Specialist (AI Architect)

Career Area:

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.

About Caterpillar

Caterpillar Inc. is the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, off-highway diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives.

For nearly 100 years, we’ve been helping customers build a better, more sustainable world and are committed and contributing to a reduced-carbon future. Our innovative products and services, backed by our global dealer network, provide exceptional value that helps customers succeed.

Your Impact 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.

What does it mean to live the Caterpillar Experience?

It means you play a part in building a better world. You contribute to a winning culture—a spirit of accountability—that has driven change on every continent for more than 90 years. To work with us is a commitment to improve sustainability, invent for the digital age and innovate in order to bring solutions to millions of people.  Sure, you work for Caterpillar. But more importantly, you work for the good of your career, your family, your community, and your world.

Job Summary

We are seeking a skilled IS Specialist (AI Architect) to join NextGen Operations -Global Finance Services Division

The IS Specialist – Procurement & AI Architecture provides technical leadership for the design, governance, and delivery of scalable digital solutions across Caterpillar’s Guided Buy and Coupa ecosystem. This role serves as the end-to-end solution architect, accountable for alignment across upstream and downstream applications, integrations, data, and business processes within the Source-to-Pay landscape.

As Caterpillar advances AI-enabled and agentic capabilities, this role also functions as an AI Architect, partnering with agile delivery teams to design, review, and govern AI-driven solutions - including agents, automation, and decision-support capabilities—while ensuring compliance with enterprise architecture standards, security requirements, and Caterpillar Responsible AI principles.

The preference for this role is to be based out of Bangalore-Shared Services, Whitefield, KA-India

What you will do

Solution & Enterprise Architecture

• Serve as the end-to-end solution architect for Guided Buy and Coupa platforms, ensuring cohesive design across requisitioning, sourcing, purchasing, invoicing, supplier enablement, and downstream financial systems.
• Design and govern integrations between Coupa/Guided Buy and upstream/downstream systems such as ERP, finance, supplier systems, middleware, data platforms, and reporting tools.
• Define scalable, secure, and reusable architectural patterns for APIs, event-based integrations, data flows, and platform extensions.
• Ensure architectural alignment with enterprise standards, IT controls, security, and SOX compliance requirements.

AI & Agentic Architecture

• Act as AI Architect for procurement and purchasing platforms, designing how AI capabilities are embedded into Guided Buy and Coupa to improve user experience, compliance, efficiency, and insights.
• Provide architectural guidance for building AI agents, copilots, and automation solutions, including prompt strategy, orchestration patterns, data grounding, and decision boundaries.
• Establish and enforce AI governance practices, including design reviews, risk assessments, Responsible AI alignment, and lifecycle management of AI agents and models.
• Perform code and solution reviews for AI-enabled components to ensure quality, maintainability, security, and architectural consistency.

Agile Delivery & Technical Leadership

• Partner with Product Owners, Project managers, and development teams within an agile environment to translate business needs into clear, actionable technical designs and backlogs.
• Guide teams through design decisions, trade-off analysis, and implementation best practices across sprints and releases.
• Support solution planning for enhancements, upgrades, and modernization initiatives, including migration from legacy capabilities.
• Own end‑to‑end troubleshooting and technical support for Guided Buy, Coupa, and the broader integrated solution landscape, partnering across teams to resolve complex cross‑system issues.
• Mentor engineers and analysts on architecture principles, integration patterns, and AI solution design.

Stakeholder Collaboration & Governance

• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to procurement, finance, audit, security, IT, and external partners.
• Lead or participate in architecture review boards, design governance forums, and change impact assessments.
• Clearly communicate complex architectural concepts and risks to both technical and business audiences.

 What you will have 

• Technology Advising: Knowledge of effective advisory methods and ability to provide valued information and advice to clients regarding products, technologies, services and solutions for a specific technology domain.
• Application Design, Architecture: Knowledge of basic activities and deliverables of application design; ability to utilize application design methodologies, tools and techniques to convert business requirements and logical models into a technical application design.
• System and Technology Integration: Knowledge of the features and facilities of systems; ability to integrate and communicate among applications, databases and technology platforms.
• Systems Software Infrastructure: Knowledge of computer architecture and system software interaction; ability to design and build a fundamental architecture of operating systems, database management systems, communications protocols, compilers and other development tools.
• Technical Troubleshooting: Knowledge of technical troubleshooting approaches, tools and techniques; ability to anticipate, recognize, and resolve technical issues on hardware, software, application or operation. 
• Core Technical & Functional Skills:
• Enterprise & Solution Architecture: Proven ability to design and govern complex, integrated application ecosystems following SDLC process across cloud and on-prem environments.
• Procurement Platforms: Hands-on experience with Guided Buy, Coupa, or similar Source-to-Pay / P2P platforms.
• Integrations: Strong knowledge of APIs, middleware, ETL, event-driven architectures, and ERP integrations.
• AI & Automation: Working knowledge of AI/ML concepts, LLMs, AI agents, and automation patterns applied to enterprise workflows.
• Agile Delivery: Experience working within agile product teams, supporting backlog refinement, sprint execution, and continuous improvement.
• This position requires candidate to work a 5-day -a -week schedule in the office.

What Will Set You Apart:

• Experience designing or governing AI agents, copilots, or AI-enabled enterprise applications.
• Strong understanding of Responsible AI principles, model governance, risk management, and ethical AI practices.
• Coupa administration, configuration, or large-scale deployment experience.
• Experience with cloud platforms, data environments, and reporting tools used in enterprise ecosystems.
• Proven ability to lead architecture discussions and influence decisions in a complex, global, matrixed organization.

Skills desired:

Problem Solving: Knowledge of approaches, tools, techniques for recognizing, anticipating, and resolving organizational, operational or process problems; ability to apply knowledge of problem solving appropriately to diverse situations.
Level Expert:
• Gains agreement on the problem-solving process, risk assessment, decision points, and criteria.
• Trains others in the process of eliciting alternatives and assessing their impact.
• Orchestrates the resolution of high-impact and cross-functional problems.
• Successfully organizes problem solvers and stakeholders for high-impact problems.
• Predicts and explains long-term trends and implications for alternatives.
• Monitors industry for best practices and new techniques in problem-solving.
Technology Advising: Knowledge of effective advisory methods and ability to provide valued information and advice to clients regarding products, technologies, services and solutions for a specific technology domain.
Level Extensive Experience:
• Collaborates with an extended professional technology network to help clients effectively identify, plan for and accomplish technology objectives.
• Supervises others in advising a range of clients across a myriad of products, technologies, services and solutions in a relevant technology domain.
• Identifies and evaluates emerging technologies and advises clients regarding their potential business impacts.
• Effectively consults with and conveys technology concepts, business impacts and other advice to senior client levels.
• Trains others in developing technology business, channel management and client coaching.
• Leverages formal certifications in mastery of multiple areas of technology in demonstrating credibility for client consulting.
Application Design, Architecture: Knowledge of basic activities and deliverables of application design; ability to utilize application design methodologies, tools and techniques to convert business requirements and logical models into a technical application design.
Level Expert:
• Consults to others on the technical design of high-impact, multi-technology complex applications.
• Contributes to the establishment and implementation of best practices for application design.
• Leads in evaluating and selecting emerging application design tools and techniques.
• Mentors juniors to create multiple application designs on multiple technology platforms.
• Directs the development of technical standards and platforms for application design.
• Provides application architecture consulting and educational support to associates and business line areas.
Requirements Analysis: Knowledge of tools, methods, and techniques of requirement analysis; ability to elicit, analyze and record required business functionality and non-functionality requirements to ensure the success of a system or software development project.
Level Expert:
• Creates leadership positions in identifying and implementing new tools and techniques.
• Shares expertise and his/her broad experience in using modeling tools for multiple requirements.
• Implements best practices for functional and information analysis and maintains the requirements definition.
• Provides insight into developing diverse and multiple requirements analyses.
• Monitors industry and vendor products in terms of improvements and enhancements.
• Establishes and communicates on advance technical standards for each stage of requirements analysis.
System and Technology Integration: Knowledge of the features and facilities of systems; ability to integrate and communicate among applications, databases and technology platforms.
Level Expert:
• Consults with others on system and/or technology integration efforts.
• Monitors system and technology integration trends and directions.
• Plays a leadership role in defining systems integration processes and practices.
• Designs complex interfaces, integration strategies and plans.
• Holds an industry wide conference on system integration and migration issues, problems and considerations.
• Demonstrates extensive experience with system and technology integration.
System Testing: Knowledge of system and software testing; ability to design, plan and execute system testing strategies and tactics to ensure the quality of software at all stages of the system life cycle.
Level Expert:
• Champions the employment of technology to maximize system test throughput and coverage.
• Builds testing and software QA methodologies and practices for the organization.
• Advocates appropriate levels of quality by resolution of important defects.
• Leads the team in testing activities and provides technical guidance on multiple testing projects.
• Directs the identification, investigation, reporting and follow-up with design teams for all issues raised during the testing process.
• Solicits and evaluates feedback from business process owners during pilot and parallel testing.
Systems Software Infrastructure: Knowledge of computer architecture and system software interaction; ability to design and build a fundamental architecture of operating systems, database management systems, communications protocols, compilers and other development tools.
Level Extensive Experience:
• Designs and implements software infrastructure and core technologies.
• Develops software architecture and data management policies and procedures.
• Resolves issues regarding the implementation of heterogeneous open systems.
• Evaluates the management of software configuration facilities and practices.
• Coaches on the essential elements of software architecture, platforms and products.
• Facilitates internal and external cooperative and distributed alignment and processing of systems software infrastructure.
Technical Troubleshooting: Knowledge of technical troubleshooting approaches, tools and techniques; ability to anticipate, recognize, and resolve technical issues on hardware, software, application or operation.
Level Extensive Experience:
• Emphasizes the business impact of failure and the criticality and timing of needed resolution so that problems can be avoided in the future.
• Creates trouble reports for all issues found and reviews solutions for completeness and correctness.
• Directs the resolution of communications problems in multi-vendor environments.
• Resolves a variety of hardware, software, and communications malfunctions.
• Coaches others on advanced diagnostic techniques and tools for unusual or performance-related problems.
• Facilitates the distribution of releases reports and correction packages to departments or clients.

What you will get:

• Work Life Harmony
• Earned and medical leave.
• Relocation assistance

Holistic Development

• Personal and professional development through Caterpillar ‘s employee resource groups across the globe
• Career developments opportunities with global prospects

Health and Wellness

• Medical coverage -Medical, life and personal accident coverage
• Employee mental wellness assistance program

 Financial Wellness

• Employee investment plan
• Pay for performance -Annual incentive Bonus plan.

 Additional Information:

Caterpillar is not currently hiring individuals for this position who now or in the future require sponsorship for employment visa status; however, as a global company, Caterpillar offers many job opportunities outside of the U.S. which can be found through our employment website at www.caterpillar.com/careers

Posting Dates:

Caterpillar is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  Qualified applicants of any age are encouraged to apply

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