Director, Product Management

Director, Product Management – Commerce Platforms

Chicago, IL (On-site)

About the job

McDonald’s is proud to be one of the most recognized brands in the world, with restaurants in over 100 countries that serve 70 million customers daily. We continue to operate from a position of strength. Our updated growth strategy is focused on staying ahead of what our customers want and realizing further growth potential. Our relentless ambition is why McDonald’s remains one of the world’s leading corporations after almost 70 years. Joining McDonald’s means thinking big and preparing for a career that can have influence around the world.

We are enjoying the flexibility of a hybrid work model, in which employees spend part of their week connecting with coworkers in our pioneering headquarters. Located in the booming West Loop of downtown Chicago, it’s set up to be a global hub that cultivates collaboration. We are an equal opportunity employer committed to the diversity of our crew members, staff, operators, and suppliers. We promote an inclusive work environment that creates feel-good moments for everyone.

Job Description

We are moving fast and are adding to our best-in-class team. Joining McDonald's means thinking big every day and preparing for a career that can have impact around the world. We are customer obsessed, committed to being leaders, and believe we are better when we work together.

McDonald’s has long been an industry leader, innovating to deliver improvements in the experience for our customers and restaurant teams. In recent years, digital platforms have become an increasingly critical part of delivering excellent customer and crew experience. We have invested to build assets and capabilities that will take advantage of this growing consumer interest in digital, including upgrades to the mobile app, as well as installation of self-order kiosks, and digital menu boards.

As Director, Product Management, you will define and own the global strategy, roadmap, and execution for the Commerce Platforms team, owning the core underlying services that power our web and mobile order ahead experiences. In this role, you will manage a team of product managers and partner closely with engineering, architecture, and market stakeholders to transform the platform’s performance and reliability. You will own key business outcomes – ensuring our systems deliver seamless order fulfillment, drive throughput and accuracy, and unlock innovation for customer-facing digital experiences. The ideal candidate for this role makes the connection between cloud applications, database performance, and resiliency improvements and their impact to customer and crew experience. You will influence global product priorities, align investments across interdependent platforms, and advocate for a unified, data-driven approach to continuous improvement. This cross-functional awareness and customer-obsessed perspective enables better conversations and advocacy for non-functional system improvements that will enable business results.

Key responsibilities:

• Establish and communicate a long-term vision for the Commerce Platforms team, defining clear product strategies that balance scalability, resiliency, and market adaptability.
• Manage a team that drives end-to-end platform development for core Order services, including order validation, totalization, and order fulfillment microservices, partnering across Engineering, Architecture, and business or market collaborators.
• Partner closely with cross-functional product leaders to align their product and experience priorities to platform capabilities and deliver enabling technical solutions that scale their best ideas to 250M customers.
• Develop relationships with markets, operations & customers to deeply understand their perspectives and difficulties as you craft your strategic roadmap.
• Define and oversee platform performance metrics, including resiliency, system performance and uptime, and architectural improvements to create duplication and systems that never fail.
• Stay up to date with industry trends and technologies to advise product strategy and ensure the product portfolio remains competitive.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and global markets including engineering, design, marketing, operations, and customer support, to ensure smooth execution of product initiatives.
• Develop a collaborative environment and build strong relationships with team members to align product goals and achieve business objectives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in business, marketing, computer science, or an equivalent field; MBA or other relevant certifications are preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in product management, with 3-5 years leading teams and portfolios in digital platform environments.
• Demonstrated track record in technical product management with strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate data insights into product enhancements.
• Consistent record with cloud native application development and deployment, including a strong understanding of best practices for designing scalable and performant cloud services.
• Deep understanding of platform architecture, enterprise systems integration, and digital commerce ecosystems.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to efficiently communicate sophisticated concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong leadership skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate with cross-functional teams while overseeing the work of other managers.
• Results-oriented attitude with a strong focus on achieving business goals.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, sophisticated environment and adapt to changing priorities.