Senior Platform Manager - AI & ML - Hawthorn East

We've been trusted to serve Aussie communities since 1914 and grown to become a top 30-listed on the ASX with 120,000 team members and a portfolio of iconic brands. At Coles Group, you'll not only get to make a difference to millions of Aussie lives—you'll also get to see your impact.

About the team

As the way we shop continues to evolve, our Data and Artificial Intelligence Team keeps us at the cutting edge. Driven by our innovative, inclusive, and forward-thinking culture, we’re constantly looking at ways to reinvent the shopping experience for our customers and build the next generation of digital retailing. 

The Data Team within the broader Coles Technology Team focuses on building data collection and analytics capabilities to uncover customer, product, and operational insights. Providing data driven support to our users and enabling Coles to be a data driven organisation.

About the role

For this exciting position within our Data and Artificial Intelligence team, we are seeking a strategic leader to work closely with the Head of Platform Engineering to define, evolve and lead the AI/ML platform strategy, architecture and roadmap to support scalable model development, deployment, monitoring and lifecycle management across the organisation.

You will be responsible for driving implementation of best practices in MLOps, model lifecycle management, versioning, monitoring, and integration into business processes.

To be successful in this role, you will deliver the below: 

• Provide functional leadership to platform managers and governance leads who support multiple domain-aligned squads. Foster a high-performance culture focused on platform resilience, reusability, and governance by design.
• Own and evolve platform-level AI/ML governance standards and ensure compliance with regulatory, ethical and organisational requirements, working closely with enterprise governance, legal, risk and compliance teams.
• Act as a key liaison between product and engineering teams, ensuring effective enablement of AI/ML capabilities while aligning with broader Data & AI platform strategies.
• Lead strategic decision-making around AI/ML tooling—evaluate, procure and integrate third-party tools while managing in-house builds, ensuring alignment to enterprise standards and cost-effectiveness.
• Ensure scalable infrastructure that supports data science experimentation, model training, deployment and inferencing at scale.
• Champion the internal developer experience by delivering intuitive, reliable AI/ML platform services and reusable components to accelerate delivery across squads.
• Lead, mentor and develop a team of senior platform and governance managers, providing strategic direction and ensuring alignment with enterprise AI/ML goals.
• Represent AI/ML platform vision and best practices across the enterprise. Communicate complex technical topics clearly to both technical and executive stakeholders.
• Partner with senior data, product, architecture and compliance leaders to ensure AI/ML initiatives are effectively governed, resourced and aligned with business strategy.
• Foster a culture of experimentation, technical excellence and continuous improvement in platform engineering and AI/ML practices.
• Drive internal education, upskilling and community development around AI/ML tooling and platform standards.

Experience required

• Proven years of experience in data, AI/ML or software engineering roles, with at least three to five years in platform leadership, ideally in complex corporate environments.
• Proven experience leading platform teams supporting AI/ML engineering and MLOps capabilities at scale.
• Demonstrated ability to build and scale AI/ML platforms, including CI/CD pipelines, feature stores, model registries, and governance frameworks.
• Strong understanding of AI/ML governance, regulatory and ethical AI considerations in enterprise settings.
• Experience managing cross-functional teams, including platform engineers, infrastructure leads, governance managers, and working with data science teams.
• Proven background in software development and deployment (Python, Java, API development).
• Hands-on experience with GenAI, agentic workflows, cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), MLOps tools, Snowflake, DataBricks, Power BI, and modern data engineering stacks.
• Strong understanding of Agile ways of working and enterprise delivery frameworks.

Commercial Skills and Formal Qualifications

• Deep expertise in ML engineering, data platform architecture, CI/CD for ML, and AI model lifecycle management.
• Strong stakeholder engagement and influencing skills across tech and business domains.
• Knowledge of distributed computing tools (Spark, Kafka), data orchestration frameworks, and DevOps for AI.
• Strong communication skills, with ability to represent technical strategy at senior leadership levels.
• Education

• Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field.

What’s in it for you?

• Flexible working options: We know that work is only one part of your life, so we actively encourage a positive work-life balance and provide hybrid working options to help you achieve it.

• Office perks: Take advantage of our gym facility and fitness classes, free parking, BBQ area, mini-Coles supermarket, fooderie hub where you can sample new products before they hit the shelves, school holiday program and so much more when you come in.

• Discounts: Eligible team members receive 5% discount all year round on your Supermarket and Liquor online and in-store purchases. We also offer additional periods of double discount (10%) at various times throughout the year. As well as hot deals exclusive to team members that translate into additional savings.

• Reward through recognition: Give and receive recognition, linked to our Coles values, through our digital recognition platform ‘mythanks.’ You can accumulate points to redeem in the online shop for exciting gifts and electronic gift cards from an extensive range of retailers.

• Opportunities for learning and development: No matter where you start within our diverse business, you’ll have experiences, exposure, and education to satisfy you. Discover and explore a variety of career development programs and job-specific training.

• Paid parental leave: We understand how important your life outside work is and offer permanent team members paid parental leave to support you in balancing work and family.

• Investment in your future: Our annual team member share plan offer allows eligible team members to make regular pre-tax salary sacrifice deductions to purchase Coles Group shares.

About the recruitment process

We’re continuing to build a gender equitable team, and a culture that is just as diverse, inclusive and welcoming as the communities we serve. We are committed to creating a workplace that is safe and respectful for our team. 

We encourage applications from people of all ages, cultures (including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples), abilities, sexual orientation and gender identities.

We’re happy to adjust our recruitment process to support candidates with disability. For further information and additional contact details visit the ‘Our Recruitment Process’ section of our careers site or email inclusionrecruitment@coles.com.au

Job ID: 166059 

Employment Type: Full time