A culture that fosters development and growth

Learn why Data Solutions Architect Keerthi Penmatsa chose McDonald’s seven years ago, and still chooses it today.

by Cassandra Kulik, Supervisor, Strategy Alignment & Communications

For Data Solutions Architect, Keerthi Penmasta, it all started with landing an internship at McDonald’s. After that, it did not take long for her to realize this is where she wanted to grow her career.

In a recent interview, Keerthi explains how McDonald’s was a place that let her shift her focus though the years, continuing to challenge her and helping her grow into various positions on the Global Technology team.

What did you study in school? What roles have you been in?
I earned my master’s of management of information systems from the University of Illinois, Chicago. My studies focused on both technology and business, hence, I started as a Business Technical Analyst at McDonald’s on the Middleware Team. From there, I moved into a cloud architecture/DevOps/Machine Learning Ops role within the Data & Architecture team. Recently, I shifted toward solution architecture.

As a technology professional, what attracted you to McDonald’s?
I received wonderful feedback from my senior advisor in college regarding the work culture at McDonald’s, so I applied to the internship program. My focus as in intern was to learn the McDonald’s ecosystem, getting up to speed on our cloud platform. My task was to build a log analytics application in the cloud to troubleshoot and monitor the API log traffic from the McDonald’s mobile app. That was back in 2015. After my internship came to an end, I was able to stay on as a consultant through 2018, when I accepted a full-time role.

I continued to choose McDonald’s, because I liked the openness in encouraging me to pursue my interests and transparency in leadership. Trust me, it makes a huge difference.

Additionally, over the past few years, Global Technology at McDonald’s has undergone a huge digital transformation, even today we continue to adopt the latest technological advances, and I feel there is a lot to learn and grow in this space.

What is your current role at McDonald’s?
I am a Data Solution Architect. I work closely with product managers, reviewing the architecture, leading technical solutions, and enforcing standard best practices around governance, data integration, security, monitoring, and cloud cost optimization for the customer domain area. I also lead the adoption of various cloud services, DevOps practices and machine learning platform solutions.

What projects are you working on now?
Currently, I am working on enhancing the security, governance, and consumption for the machine learning platform, which is a cloud-based collaborative data science, data engineering, and data analytics platform. I’m also helping markets adopt best practices for using the platform. Apart from this, I am working on reviewing the technical design for some of the in-house products developed by our data-science teams, like delivery accuracy and price-forecasting tools, ensuring they are aligned with best practices and standards.

What’s something about working at McDonald’s that surprised you?
The concept of global versus market and the magnitude and scale. It truly amazes me how much planning and engineering goes into every solution that is deployed to the markets. When we do any technical implementation, we are required to think not only on building a product, but also on deploying it globally, and ensuring we have consistent codebase, governance etc.

What development opportunities have you had at McDonald’s?
I have been very fortunate to have great mentors in my career at McDonald’s. I have always been encouraged to try something different within my own areas of interest, be it DevOps, machine learning, or architecture. The openness and encouragement to explore enables me to obtain experience in various areas, like cloud consumption and finance, both of which are outside my domain area.

Why would you encourage someone to join the McDonald’s Global Technology team?
McDonald’s is a resilient company, and technology is a large enabler; this was illustrated by how smoothly the company shifted gears to manage through COVID in 2020. They stood by employees and made decisions for the good of both employees and customers.

The investment in technology allows the company to grow and encourage employees to explore interests beyond a current role.

Between the investments made in technology and employees, and the open, transparent work culture, you can’t go wrong with McDonald’s.

What is your go-to McDonald’s order?
Always, fries come first and then the McChicken sandwich. I also love trying the Global Menu from the restaurant at McDonald’s Global Headquarters.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
I love nature photography. I also enjoy spending time outdoors with my family and catching up on movies.