Job Specifications
Company Description:
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 Overview
At McDonald’s, AI is reshaping how we operate and serve customers. From drive-thru management and kitchen automation powered by Computer Vision to customer care and voice ordering enabled by Natural Language Processing, AI is at the heart of how we deliver flawless, efficient, and personalized experiences across 100+ countries.
We are seeking an AI Engineer / Scientist with expertise in Computer Vision and/or Natural Language Processing to join our AI Labs team. You will help turn cutting-edge research into production systems that streamline operations, improve crew efficiency, and enhance customer experience at global scale. This role sits at the intersection of advanced research, large-scale deployment, and product innovation—ensuring that our AI roadmap delivers measurable business and customer impact.
Accountabilities & Responsibilities
Design, develop, and refine advanced AI models in either Computer Vision (CNNs, Vision Transformers, Diffusion models) or NLP (Transformers, LLMs, seq2seq, RAG, embeddings).
Implement solutions in Python/C++, leveraging frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, OpenCV.
Apply fine-tuning and optimization techniques (transfer learning, LoRA, quantization, distillation).
Know the latest with CV and NLP research (e.g., NeurIPS, ACL, CVPR), introducing novel techniques like multimodal fusion or generative models into enterprise applications.
Translate research into production-ready systems, ensuring scalability, reproducibility, and monitoring.
Develop AI pipelines and workflows across edge devices, kiosks, and cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure).
Optimize for latency, cost efficiency, and restaurant-specific constraints (drive-thru, mobile, kiosk).
Work closely with AI engineers, MLOps teams, and product/operations teams to deliver real-world AI solutions.
Support enterprise AI governance, compliance, and risk management to ensure responsible, safe, and ethical AI deployments.
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI, or related field.
5–9 years of experience in engineering or related roles, with 4+ years of hands-on AI/ML development.
Strong programming skills in Python (C++ a plus).
Deep understanding of transformer architectures, model optimization techniques, and core algorithms in either Computer Vision or NLP.
Experience with cloud AI services (AWS SageMaker, Google Vertex AI, Azure ML), preferably GCP.
Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
Strong collaboration skills and ability to thrive in fast-paced, multi-functional environments.
Passion for innovation, with a track record of applying AI responsibly and at scale.
Preferred Qualifications:
Master’s or PhD or equivalent experience in AI, Computer Science, or related field.
CV Focus: Experience with EfficientNet, ResNet, YOLO, SAM, or Diffusion models.
NLP Focus: Experience with LLM fine-tuning, embeddings, prompt engineering, RAG, or pre-trained models (BERT, GPT, LLaMA, T5).
Experience deploying and supervising AI models in production, including model versioning and reproducibility.
Contributions to open-source CV/NLP frameworks (e.g., Hugging Face, PyTorch Lightning, OpenCV).
Compensation
Bonus Eligible: Yes
Long - Term Incentive: Yes
Benefits Eligible: Yes
Salary Range
The expected salary range for this role is $138,207.00 - $172,758.00 per year
The above represents the expected salary range for