The Lead Software Engineer will oversee mobile app development, manage production incidents, coach developers, and ensure release quality and continuous improvement.
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.
Cat® Digital is the digital and technology arm of Caterpillar Inc., connecting the physical and digital worlds to deliver industry-leading solutions for our customers and dealers. The Digital Adoption & Customer Success organization accelerates the adoption and usage of digital products, delivering measurable value to Cat Dealers and Customers, and driving a customer-centric approach through enhanced management and impact measurement.
Job Summary:
The Lead Software Engineer will lead the execution and delivery of software projects on the Cat Central mobile app team, ensuring production stability, release quality, and continuous improvement. Drives operational excellence by managing incidents, coaching developers, and removing blockers to keep delivery on track. Serves as the technical point of escalation for critical production issues while guiding the team toward performance and quality goals.
What You Will Do:
What You Will Have:
Considerations For Top Candidates:
Summary Pay Range:
$128,470.00 - $208,770.00
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.
* These benefits also apply to part-time employees
Visa Sponsorship is not available for this position.
Posting Dates:
May 27, 2026 - June 14, 2026
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.
Not ready to apply? Join our Talent Community.
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.
Cat® Digital is the digital and technology arm of Caterpillar Inc., connecting the physical and digital worlds to deliver industry-leading solutions for our customers and dealers. The Digital Adoption & Customer Success organization accelerates the adoption and usage of digital products, delivering measurable value to Cat Dealers and Customers, and driving a customer-centric approach through enhanced management and impact measurement.
Job Summary:
The Lead Software Engineer will lead the execution and delivery of software projects on the Cat Central mobile app team, ensuring production stability, release quality, and continuous improvement. Drives operational excellence by managing incidents, coaching developers, and removing blockers to keep delivery on track. Serves as the technical point of escalation for critical production issues while guiding the team toward performance and quality goals.
What You Will Do:
- Designing, modifying, developing, writing, and implementing software programming applications for target systems using agile methods.
- Collaborating with product owners, architects, and stakeholders to align technical execution with business priorities.
- Managing production incident response, including triage, root cause analysis, stakeholder communication, and resolution tracking.
- Owning the release management process, including scheduling, risk assessment, go/no-go decisions, and post-release validation.
- Coaching and mentoring developers through code reviews, architecture discussions, and hands-on pairing when critical fixes are needed.
- Championing the adoption of AI productivity tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude) across the team to accelerate development, improve code quality, and automate repetitive workflows.
What You Will Have:
- Decision Making and Critical Thinking: Makes rapid, sound decisions under pressure during production incidents with incomplete information. Balances technical trade-offs against business impact when prioritizing work and managing risk.
- Effective Communications: Communicates incident status, release readiness, and team progress clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Software Development: Evaluates architectural decisions and technical approaches to ensure alignment with long-term platform scalability and maintainability. Maintains working knowledge across the full stack to effectively assess risk, review estimates, and challenge assumptions. Identifies patterns of recurring defects or tech debt and drives systemic improvements rather than one-off fixes.
- Software Development Life Cycle: Manages the full lifecycle from development through staging, UAT, and production release.
Considerations For Top Candidates:
- Extensive experience in software engineering
- Proven experience technical leadership or team lead capacity.
- Experience building and operating large-scale production applications serving high transaction volumes with strict uptime requirements.
- Experience with AWS CloudWatch for monitoring, alerting, log analysis, and operational visibility into production systems.
- Familiarity with mobile application development lifecycles (iOS/Android) and release processes.
- Demonstrated experience managing production incidents for user-facing applications.
- Experience with React Native or native mobile development.
- Demonstrated proficiency with AI productivity tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor) for code generation, debugging, documentation, and workflow automation.
- Experience with release management tooling, feature flags, and phased rollout strategies.
- Track record of coaching junior and mid-level engineers toward increased autonomy and technical growth.
Summary Pay Range:
$128,470.00 - $208,770.00
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
Visa Sponsorship is not available for this position.
Posting Dates:
May 27, 2026 - June 14, 2026
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.
Not ready to apply? Join our Talent Community.
Caterpillar Chicago, Illinois, USA Office
In the heart of Chicago's lively West Loop area, we have easy access to public transport, great bars and restaurants, and an awesome office roof deck.
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