(USA) Group Director, Software Engineering

Group Director, Software Engineering

Location: 2101 Se Simple Savings Dr, Bentonville, AR 72712-4304, United States of America

Salary: $195,000 - $370,000/yr

Employment Type: Regular/Permanent

Compensation Type: Salaried

About Role

Lead a multi-domain software engineering organization responsible for building and scaling the core merchandising applications, workflows, and shared platforms that power how merchants plan, buy, price, promote, and analyze merchandise performance. The portfolio spans Planning & Forecasting, Space and Assortment Enablement, Product & Supplier Management (including item governance and discovery), Buying Execution (including cost and allowance processes), Pricing/Promotions/Events, Markdown Execution, and Analytics & Performance Review—with a clear focus on merchant productivity, execution accuracy, reliability, and measurable business outcomes. This leader owns strategy-to-execution across multiple product domains and dependencies: setting technical direction, establishing outcome-based roadmaps and metrics, guiding architecture and platform decisions, and ensuring high-quality delivery and production operations. The role also serves as a culture champion and people leader, developing strong leaders and teams while modeling the Walmart Development Lifecycle® and Walmart values.

What You'll Do

1) Own multi-domain portfolio outcomes across core Merchandising capabilities

• Set portfolio strategy, measurable outcomes, and delivery plans across the merchandising lifecycle (planning → buying → pricing/promo → insights), ensuring clear accountability and transparent KPI reporting.
• Translate business strategy into executable roadmaps, sequencing work across domains and managing complex dependencies.

2) Define problems and success metrics; drive stakeholder alignment

• Partner with business and product leaders to break down complex customer/associate problems into actionable requirements.
• Establish operational, functional, and engineering metrics (adoption, cycle time, accuracy/quality, reliability, cost, and business impact), and drive a metrics-driven delivery culture.

3) Guide architecture and engineering excellence (platform + domain systems)

• Provide architectural leadership for robust, scalable solutions (distributed systems, domain-driven design, non-functional requirements, and enterprise-grade reliability/performance).
• Propose and guide alternate frameworks, platforms, tools, and environments at the enterprise level when needed to accelerate speed and reduce complexity.

4) Own full lifecycle delivery and operations

• Drive end-to-end software lifecycle execution including CI/CD, observability, incident readiness, security, and operational excellence.
• Lead efforts to reduce friction/toil, optimize cloud costs, and rationalize software/platform footprints while improving experience and uptime.

5) Scale talent and technical leadership

• Build and develop a strong bench of leaders (Directors/Sr. Managers/Architects/Principals); coach across technical ownership, judgment, change agility, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Model leadership behaviors and values, reinforcing a high-performance culture with a strong focus on wellbeing and belonging.

Scope of Responsibility

This leader owns the software engineering strategy, delivery, and operational excellence for a portfolio of merchant-facing applications, platforms, and shared experience frameworks that enable key Merchandising capabilities across the end-to-end lifecycle. The organization builds and runs software products that directly support the following capability areas:

Planning & Forecasting

• Engineering ownership of planning workflow experiences and supporting services that enable merchants to define and manage merchandise plans over time (including calendar-driven planning and execution enablement).

Space & Assortment Enablement

• Build and operate software that supports micro space/layout decisioning workflows used to plan and optimize space execution.

Product & Supplier Management

• Engineering accountability for experiences and services that support item discovery, item governance, and accurate item/location information—foundational to upstream and downstream merchandising workflows.

Buying Execution

• Lead teams building software that enables buying execution workflows—supporting negotiation processes, allowance management, and cost execution—improving speed, accuracy, auditability, and compliance.

Pricing, Promotions, and Events

• Own engineering outcomes for pricing and promotional/event execution tooling, including operational experiences that help ensure accurate downstream execution (e.g., pricing operational readiness and store/field execution enablement).

Markdown Strategy Execution

• Build and scale software that supports markdown execution and optimization workflows, enabling consistent, timely, and measurable markdown actions.

Analytics & Performance Review

• Engineering ownership of experiences that provide merchants with daily performance visibility and insights to support decisions and continuous improvement.

Shared Experience Frameworks (Cross-cutting Platform)

• Own the shared "front door" experience layer and common frameworks (navigation/search, notifications, workflow orchestration, common UI components) that accelerate delivery and ensure consistency across the portfolio.

Operating expectations: This scope includes portfolio-level technical strategy, architecture stewardship, delivery governance, talent development, and production operations (availability, performance, reliability, security) across all software products supporting these capabilities.

What You'll Bring

1) Multi-domain portfolio leadership at scale

• Demonstrated success overseeing delivery and evolution of large-scale software ecosystems across multiple domains with significant cross-functional dependencies.

2) Strong technical leadership and architecture judgment

• Proven experience leading architecture for complex systems (distributed systems, domain-driven design, scalability/performance/reliability, and non-functional requirements).
• Ability to guide platform decisions, standards, and modernization efforts across a portfolio.

3) AI/ML integration + product-driven execution

• Experience building software solutions with AI/ML integrations and/or agentic/automation components, with strong operational rigor (quality, monitoring, and measurable business impact).

4) Full lifecycle ownership and operational excellence

• Strong delivery discipline across CI/CD, observability, incident readiness, security/compliance, software rationalization, and cloud cost optimization.
• Track record of reducing friction/toil and improving system reliability while accelerating delivery.

5) Executive influence and people leadership

• Credible partner to senior stakeholders; proven ability to align teams, manage conflict, and deliver outcomes across org boundaries.
• Demonstrated experience hiring, coaching, and developing leaders, building inclusive, high-performing teams.

Leadership Expectations, Values, and Role Model Standards

• Masters the Walmart Development Lifecycle® and models leadership expectations.
• Builds a culture rooted in Walmart values: Respect for the Individual, Act With Integrity, Serve our Customers/Members, and Strive for Excellence.
• Demonstrates global tech foundational skills: ownership, judgment, agility, collaboration, and innovation.
• Continuously learns and develops; encourages skill development and role-based certifications/specialties.

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 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.

The above information has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed in the role. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all responsibilities and qualifications required of