Director - Restaurant Experience Technology

Role Purpose

The Director, Restaurant Experience Technology (RET) is responsible for ensuring technology investments deliver measurable value in restaurant operations and customer experience. The role serves as the primary bridge between Restaurant Operations and Technology and owns technology adoption, operational readiness, rollout quality, supportability and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities:

Restaurant Technology Experience Strategy

• Define and execute RET strategy
• Act as voice of restaurant operations within IT
• Develop adoption and operational excellence roadmaps from technology perspective

Restaurant Journey & Experience Design

• Collaborate with Product Team to synchronize their software journey and roadmap with in-store operational issues
• Optimize in-store hardware placements for maximum impact
• Reduce technology related operational friction points

Technology Rollout & Operational Readiness

• Lead pilots and deployment readiness
• Drive training and adoption of technology with Operations Excellence team
• Establish rollout governance

Operations Engineering & Continuous Improvement (along with Operations Excellence Team)

• Apply Industrial Engineering principles jointly
• Lead process optimization and throughput improvement
• Use Lean and Six Sigma methodologies

Technology Operations & Service Excellence

• Improve service reliability
• Lead root cause analysis and service reviews
• Drive operational governance

Business Partnership & Adoption Leadership

• Partner with Operations leaders
• Maintain field feedback loops
• Lead change management efforts

Technology Scope

• POS
• Self Order Kiosks
• Kitchen Display Systems
• Drive-Thru Technologies
• Digital Menu Boards
• Payment Systems
• Workforce Management
• Restaurant Mobility Platforms
• AI-enabled Restaurant Technologies

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in IT, Industrial Engineering, Operations Management, Engineering, Computer Science or related field. MBA preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in restaurant technology or digital transformation.

Critical Skills & Competencies

• Restaurant Journey Design (Placement and Customer Flow perspective - Jointly with Product)
• In-store Technology Rollout, Adoption and Change Management (Jointly with Operations Excellence)
• Industrial Engineering & Process Optimization
• Lean / Six Sigma
• Technology Service Management
• Stakeholder Management
• Vendor Management

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Technology Value Realization

• Serve as the primary bridge between Restaurant Operations and Technology teams, ensuring operational needs are translated into effective technology solutions.
• Partner with Operations Excellence teams to redesign restaurant processes, improve throughput, optimize labor utilization, and identify technology-enabled operational improvements.
• Collaborate with Product Management to provide operational insights, prioritize enhancements, and ensure product roadmaps reflect restaurant needs and customer experience objectives.
• Partner with Design teams to evaluate customer and crew journeys, validate usability of restaurant technology solutions, and improve adoption through intuitive experiences.
• Work closely with Engineering teams throughout the solution lifecycle, providing operational requirements, field feedback, and deployment learnings to improve solution quality and effectiveness.
• Participate in technology discovery, piloting, testing, and rollout activities to ensure operational readiness before deployment.
• Establish continuous feedback loops between restaurants and Product, Design, and Engineering teams to drive ongoing enhancements and innovation.
• Act as the first point of escalation for operational technology challenges, ensuring rapid collaboration across business and technology teams.

RET Partnership Focus

Operations - Restaurant pain points, adoption, support and operational performance

Operations Excellence - Process optimization, throughput improvement, labor efficiency, Lean initiatives

Product - Feature prioritization, operational requirements, roadmap input

Design - Customer journey, crew journey, usability and workflow design

Engineering - Solution feasibility, rollout readiness, operational feedback and enhancements