(USA) Principal, Software Engineer

Position Summary...

What you'll do...

Are you passionate about pioneering cutting-edge technology that can revolutionize the world of associate (employee) experiences? Do you dream of playing a technical role that will shape the future of Global People Systems?  If you possess exceptional technical expertise, you may be interested in this opportunity.  

Join our dynamic and forward-thinking People Technology engineering organization as our Staff Engineer, where you’ll be at the forefront of driving innovation, spearheading transformative projects and foundational improvements of Walmart's Workforce Enablement systems. We are seeking a sharp technical leader who will set the tone of engineering-excellence and drive processes and standards within the team.  Your projects will have tremendous impact and will be at the center of modernization efforts in Walmart’s People Technology organization. 

About Team:
The Enterprise People Technology team supports the successful deployment and adoption of new People technology across the enterprise. As a Fortune #1 company, our work impacts millions of associates globally. We strive to continuously improve people technology and products to help managers and associates so they can focus on what matters most - supporting our customers and members. People Technology is one of the major segments of Walmart Global Tech’s Enterprise Business Services, which is invested in building a compact, robust organization that includes service operations and technology solutions for Finance, People, and the Associate Digital Experience.

What you'll do:

Staff Engineer (GenAI & Agentic Work with Python Expertise)

About the Role:

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer who is an architect-level expert in Python, with a deep mastery of LLM-driven systems, agentic architectures, and scalable intelligent automation. This is a pivotal role where you'll define the technical strategy, influence architecture across domains, and lead the creation of next-gen AI-driven platforms that move beyond prompt engineering into modular reasoning systems.

This role isn’t about building one-off workflows—it’s about inventing and hardening intelligent systems that can reason, act, and adapt. You will shape the core architecture of multi-agent platforms, ensure LLM integrations are secure, efficient, and observable, and build frameworks that others can extend across use cases and orgs.

As a Principal Engineer, you set the vision, write the critical path code, guide Staff and Senior engineers, and are the final word on whether a design is ready for scale.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define and own the agentic architecture strategy across teams, including MasterAgent design, tool orchestration, memory layers, and dynamic router agents.
• Architect modular, testable, and composable Python systems that support multi-agent workflows, tool-chaining, RAG, memory management, and fallback strategies.
• Design LLM-powered execution engines that support both high throughput and adaptive reasoning (via LangChain, AutoGen, or custom frameworks).
• Lead implementation of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, semantic search, and structured knowledge memory systems.
• Build and scale integrations with internal LLMs, including handling signature-based auth, function calling, and context management at scale.
• Drive end-to-end lifecycle: from configuration schema (YAML) to execution trace logging, observability, and self-healing recovery patterns.
• Lead cross-org architecture reviews, influence roadmap prioritization, and set coding and design standards for all agentic platform work.
• Act as a multiplier by mentoring Staff/Senior engineers, building reusable libraries, and leading technical guilds around AI agent infrastructure.

Must-Have Qualifications:

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with 7+ years in Python, building distributed systems at scale.
• Deep knowledge of agentic design patterns, including:
• ReAct, Plan-and-Execute, AutoGen-style coordination
• Tool calling, dynamic agent routing, and recursive agent planning
• Semantic memory, embedding-based context lookup, summarization windows
• Expertise in building LLM-based systems with LangChain, OpenAI, Anthropic, or custom orchestrators.
• Hands-on experience with:
• RAG pipelines using vector stores (FAISS, Pinecone, Weaviate, Qdrant, Azure Cognitive Search)
• LLM evaluation and observability (tracing, token usage, agent state tracking)
• Workflow orchestration using config-first approaches (YAML/JSON definitions, step runners, etc.)
• Proven ability to drive technical vision, resolve ambiguity, and make architectural tradeoffs at scale.
• Strong background in distributed systems, task queues, asynchronous workflows, and backend performance optimization.
• Experience in cloud-native environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including containerization, monitoring, and secure API integrations.

Nice-to-Have:

• Built or contributed to a custom agentic orchestration framework used across multiple product lines.
• Experience with vector search optimization, context ranking, or temporal memory solutions.
• Published talks, blogs, or papers on LLM systems, AI architecture, or applied reasoning frameworks.
• Deep understanding of how to apply LLM systems in regulated or high-compliance environments (PII handling, redaction, observability).
• Exposure to DevEx platforms for developers to build workflows on top of intelligent agents.
• Familiarity with multi-modal agents (text + vision), LLM simulation patterns, or offline evaluation loops.

What Success Looks Like:

You’ve built an agent platform that others across the org use as the foundation for intelligent automation.

You turn abstract ideas into clean, extensible, production-grade Python systems that scale and evolve.

You elevate technical conversations, coach Staff+ engineers, and are the go-to person for unblocking complex challenges.

You are not just LLM-aware—you pioneer how LLMs are applied in production systems, with a clear perspective on what's reliable, efficient, and future-proof.

Your influence goes beyond code—you shape tech culture, architectural direction, and platform vision.

This role requires not only technical acumen but also the ability to mentor and guide team members, ensuring a collaborative and innovative engineering environment.

About Walmart Global Tech
Imagine working in an environment where one line of code can make life easier for hundreds of millions of people. That’s what we do at Walmart Global Tech. We’re a team of software engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity expert's and service professionals within the world’s leading retailer who make an epic impact and are at the forefront of the next retail disruption. People are why we innovate, and people power our innovations. We are people-led and tech-empowered. We train our team in the skillsets of the future and bring in experts like you to help us grow. We have roles for those chasing their first opportunity as well as those looking for the opportunity that will define their career. Here, you can kickstart a great career in tech, gain new skills and experience for virtually every industry, or leverage your expertise to innovate at scale, impact millions and reimagine the future of retail.

Flexible, hybrid work:
We use a hybrid way of working that is primarily in office coupled with virtual when not onsite. Our campuses serve as a hub to enhance collaboration, bring us together for purpose and deliver on business needs. This approach helps us make quicker decisions, remove location barriers across our global team and be more flexible in our personal lives.

Benefits:
Benefits: Beyond our great compensation package, you can receive incentive awards for your performance. Other great perks include 401(k) match, stock purchase plan, paid maternity and parental leave, PTO, multiple health plans, and much more.

Equal Opportunity Employer:
Walmart, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer – By Choice. We believe we are best equipped to help our associates, customers and the communities we serve live better when we really know them. That means understanding, respecting, and valuing diversity- unique styles, experiences, identities, ideas and opinions – while being inclusive of all people.

At Walmart, we offer competitive pay as well as performance-based bonus awards and other great benefits for a happier mind, body, and wallet. Health benefits include medical, vision and dental coverage. Financial benefits include 401(k), stock purchase and company-paid life insurance. Paid time off benefits include PTO (including sick leave), parental leave, family care leave, bereavement, jury duty, and voting. Other benefits include short-term and long-term disability, company discounts, Military Leave Pay, adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, and more.

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You will also receive PTO and/or PPTO that can be used for vacation, sick leave, holidays, or other purposes. The amount you receive depends on your job classification and length of employment. It will meet or exceed the requirements of paid sick leave laws, where applicable.

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For information about PTO, see https://one.walmart.com/notices.

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Live Better U is a Walmart-paid education benefit program for full-time and part-time associates in Walmart and Sam's Club facilities. Programs range from high school completion to bachelor's degrees, including English Language Learning and short-form certificates. Tuition, books, and fees are completely paid for by Walmart.

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Eligibility requirements apply to some benefits and may depend on your job classification and length of employment. Benefits are subject to change and may be subject to a specific plan or program terms.

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For information about benefits and eligibility, see One.Walmart.

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The annual salary range for this position is $110,000.00-$220,000.00

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Additional compensation includes annual or quarterly performance bonuses.

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Additional compensation for certain positions may also include:

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- Stock

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Minimum Qualifications...

Outlined below are the required minimum qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no minimum qualifications.

Option 1: Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or related area and5 years’ experience in software engineering or related area.
Option 2: 7 years’ experience in software engineering or related area.

Preferred Qualifications...

Outlined below are the optional preferred qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no preferred qualifications.

Master’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or related area and 3 years' experience in software engineering or related area., We value candidates with a background in creating inclusive digital experiences, demonstrating knowledge in implementing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standards, assistive technologies, and integrating digital accessibility seamlessly. The ideal candidate would have knowledge of accessibility best practices and join us as we continue to create accessible products and services following Walmart’s accessibility standards and guidelines for supporting an inclusive culture.

Primary Location...

508 Sw 8Th St, Bentonville, AR 72712, United States of America