Kc Rakam

About Kc Rakam

I\'m a data and AI platform leader with 20 years of experience building global engineering organizations and cloud-native platforms across retail, CPG, quick-service restaurants, and enterprise technology. At McDonald\'s, I lead Global Data & AI Platforms and Operations — a globally distributed engineering organization with 24x7 production responsibility. I\'m driving a multi-year cloud-native Platform-as-a-Product transformation spanning data engineering, real-time streaming, API platforms, GenAI enablement, governance, observability, and FinOps. The work isn\'t just technical modernization — it\'s organizational transformation: global operating model design, insourcing strategy, and building durable engineering capability at enterprise scale. Before McDonald\'s, I spent 8 years at Google Cloud as Head of Customer Engineering, Data & AI — partnering with Fortune 500 enterprises to modernize platforms, accelerate cloud adoption, and unlock measurable outcomes across cost, performance, and innovation. My focus at every level has been the same: close the gap between data infrastructure and business value. That means building platforms that are self-service by design, governed by default, and engineered for the speed that modern enterprises actually need. Current areas of depth: Agentic AI and GenAI platform enablement at enterprise scaleCloud-agnostic data platform strategy and architecture across hyperscalers and modern data stackPlatform-as-a-Product operating modelsFinOps, governance, and observability at global scaleLarge-scale org design, insourcing, and engineering talent strategy I\'m based in Atlanta and open to conversations at the intersection of enterprise technology leadership, AI platform strategy, and the future of data-driven operations.

Experience

1. Sr Director Data & Ai Platforms and Operations

   McDonald's

   Nov 2024 — Present · US

   Leading a large, globally distributed engineering and platform specialist organization across multiple regions, with 24x7 production responsibility for enterprise-grade data and AI platform reliabilityDriving a multi-year cloud-native transformation to GCP — migrating and modernizing McDonald\'s global data platform infrastructure at enterprise scale across data engineering, real-time streaming, and API platformsPioneering a Platform-as-a-Product operating model — transforming data infrastructure from a cost center into a self-service, product-grade platform enabling analytics, AI, and digital products across the enterpriseBuilding and launching McDonald\'s AI Platform — enabling GenAI and agentic AI capabilities at global scale, accelerating time-to-value for AI-driven use cases across the businessExecuting a large-scale global insourcing strategy — redesigning the operating model, restructuring vendor dependencies, and building durable in-house platform engineering capability at global scaleConsistently delivering enterprise-grade platform reliability across a globally distributed, mission-critical data and AI ecosystem

Education

• Lawrence Technological University

  Masters, Computer Science

  2003 — 2004

Skills

• Thin Provisioning
• Tableau
• Disaster Recovery
• Emc Storage
• Netapp
• Pre-Sales
• Infrastructure
• Backup Solutions
• Hitachi Storage
• Vendor Management
• Splunk
• Business Intelligence
• Enterprise Software
• Sdlc
• Solution Architecture
• Linux
• Hortonworks
• Project Management
• Active Directory
• Unix
• Symantec Backup
• Cloudera
• Vmware
• Hadoop
• Windows
• Data Center
• Big Data Analytics
• Virtualization
• Netapp Filers
• Cloud Computing
• Teradata
• Operational Intelligence
• Integration
• System Deployment
• Data Warehouse Architecture
• Servers
• Itil
• Storage
• Vmware Esx
• Nas