Principal, Software Engineer

Position Summary

Personalization team at Walmart is dedicated to the mission of knowing our customers better and making it frictionless and faster for them to get what they want while building a trusted partnership with Walmart. We help bring a seamless experience to our customers irrespective of how and where they engage with us – while shopping online or picking groceries at stores. We thrive to provide each customer with a journey tailored to their individual needs, preferences and routines. We operate at the intersection of huge Walmart assortment, millions of customers, thousands of stores and Walmart associates - a multi-layer multi-objective problem space which has a unique impact on Global customer base and powers assisted AI for our associates.

The Personalization team consists of big data geeks, application engineers, scientists and product visionaries all working together to design, prototype and build technology-driven products and experiences that will change the future landscape of e-commerce. We are focused on building an intelligent system that will enable 1:1 personalized customer experience, from finding the product to delivering it to the customer. We are building state-of-the-art probabilistic models and engineering marvels to serve our customer needs by leveraging cutting edge machine learning, deep learning, reinforcement learning, natural language processing, entity-relationship extraction and knowledge representation. This will span many markets, business models and form factors; therefore, we are looking for scientists and engineers who will bring not only an abundance of experiences in technologies, but an abundant curiosity to innovate.

What You’ll Do

• Design, build, and deploy large-scale, production-grade ML systems, including deep learning models, real-time inference services, and end-to-end ML pipelines for our generative shopping agents.
• Lead the development of Multi-Channel Personalized (MCP) agents and tools. This includes implementing advanced techniques like Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to provide agents with a comprehensive understanding of long-term customer history, preferences, and intent, as well as short-term session context.
• Champion the use of multimodal data (text, images, user behavior, contextual signals) to power hyper-personalized recommendations, product discovery, and proactive customer engagement.
• Implement and maintain robust and observable systems for model training, deployment, and monitoring at scale. Partner with platform and infrastructure teams to evolve our ML stack, leveraging cloud-native services.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams, including product managers, data scientists, and software engineers, to translate business goals into robust technical solutions. Serve as a technical leader and mentor for junior team members, setting standards for best practices and system design.
• Continuously evaluate new technologies and research in generative AI, personalization, and contextual understanding to inform and advance our product roadmap.

What You’ll Bring

• Proven expertise in building and deploying production-grade ML solutions at scale, preferably in e-commerce, or recommendation systems.
• Hands-on experience with generative AI, including LLMs, RAG systems, and agent frameworks.
• Experience with multimodal data and building systems that integrate diverse data types (user behavior, product data, images, text, etc.).
• Proficiency in Python and relevant ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Deep understanding of ML engineering principles, including data pipelines, model training, and serving infrastructure.
• Experience with cloud-native development (e.g., GCP, Azure), containerization (Docker), and orchestration (Kubernetes) and microservices architecture.
• Familiarity with vector databases, knowledge graphs, and semantic search techniques for efficient memory management and context retrieval.

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 experts 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.

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 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.

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.

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. 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.

Minimum Qualifications

Option 1: Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or related area and 5 years’ experience in software engineering or related area. Option 2: 7 years’ experience in software engineering or related area.

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

1345 Crossman Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1114, United States of America