Senior Principal Software Engineer

Overview

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Senior Principal Engineer to lead our Agentic and Generative AI initiatives. In this role, you will act as the AI expert and thought leader, defining the strategy and technical roadmap for Agentic AI at REI. You will be a key influencer in our AI transformation, ensuring the ethical, performant, and innovative use of AI technologies, including ML, NLP, LLM, Generative and Agential AI. You will work closely with cross-functional teams to deliver agentic solutions that shape both customer and employee experiences.

As a Senior Principal Engineer, your responsibilities will include:

Strategy & Architecture: Define and lead REI's Agentic AI strategy and roadmap, translating business objectives into scalable, actionable initiatives. Technical Leadership: Engineer and oversee the implementation of core AI platforms, models, and integrations, ensuring they are robust, secure, and align with REI's technology stack.

Innovation: Stay at the forefront of Agentic AI advancements, identifying emerging technologies, and assessing their applicability to REI's unique needs.

• Mentorship & Best Practices: Enliven the AI COE by demonstrating coding standards, model evaluation methodologies, responsible AI guidelines, and MLOps practices. You will also mentor and upskill technology staff across Commerce and Customer Technology teams.

Cross-Functional Influence: Collaborate with Product, Merchandising, Marketing, Retail and Operations to identify high-impact use cases and drive successful pilot programs and widespread adoption of AI solutions. Reliability: Participate in 24/7 incident response for AI systems, ensuring reliability and performance.

Responsibilities and Qualifications:

Strategic Vision: This role demands someone capable of setting long-term direction, not just executing immediate tasks. A Senior Principal Engineer will build the foundational architecture and define the patterns for future scalable agentic solutions. Complexity & Risk Mitigation: Gen AI involves significant technical complexity, ethical considerations, and data governance challenges. A Senior Principal Engineer possesses the depth of experience to navigate these complexities, identify potential pitfalls, and implement robust safeguards.

Influence & Standardization: This individual will drive adoption across multiple engineering teams and departments, requiring significant influence, technical credibility, and the ability to establish company-wide standards and best practices for Gen AI development and deployment.

• Mentorship & Team Growth: As a subject matter expert, they will mentor existing engineers, build internal capability, and attract specialized talent to grow our Gen AI competency from within.

Immediate Impact: A Senior Principal Engineer can hit the ground running, rapidly assessing our current state, identifying critical paths, and initiating high-value projects with minimal oversight. Required Skills & Experience Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

10+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years specializing in AI/ML systems. Extensive experience with AI/ML frameworks and libraries such as TensorFlow and PyTorch. Deep proficiency in Python, with a strong command of the full machine learning lifecycle, from data engineering to model deployment.

Expertise in CI/CD for ML (MLOps), including tools like MLflow, Kubeflow, or Argo.

Experience with cloud-based AI platforms (e.g., AWS SageMaker, Azure ML, GCP Vertex AI).:

A strong grasp of AI ethics, fairness, and interpretability. Proven experience leading AI projects in large-scale enterprise environments. Exceptional problem-solving skills and the ability to think critically and strategically. Strong communication and leadership skills with a proven ability to influence and mentor teams.

Core Technical Expertise 10+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years specializing in building and deploying AI/ML systems at scale.

Deep Generative AI & Large Language Model (LLM) Expertise:

Hands-on experience with modern Generative AI development frameworks and tools (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex). Deep comprehension of LLM architectures (e.g., GPT, BERT, T5) and the ability to train, fine-tune, and deploy these models. Proficiency in Prompt Engineering, including advanced techniques for model control and optimization.

Experience with advanced retrieval systems and architectures like RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), including the use of vector databases.:

AI/ML Frameworks & Languages:

Expert-level proficiency in Python. Deep, hands-on experience with major AI frameworks such as PyTorch and TensorFlow.

MLOps & Productionization:

Proven track record of designing and implementing the full ML lifecycle, from data engineering to model training, evaluation, and deployment. Expertise in CI/CD for ML (MLOps), with hands-on experience using tools like MLflow, Kubeflow, or similar platforms.

Experience architecting and maintaining production-grade machine learning pipelines that are scalable and reliable.:

Cloud AI Platforms:

Extensive experience with cloud-based AI platforms such as AWS SageMaker, Azure Machine Learning, or GCP Vertex AI. Deep knowledge of distributed computing and parallel processing for handling large-scale datasets and model training.

Experience with AI Agent Platforms:

Hands-on experience building agents and intelligent applications using leading AI platforms and services, such as:

Microsoft Copilot Studio: Experience creating and customizing conversational agents and copilots. Anthropic: Deep familiarity with Anthropic's models (e.g., Claude) and API for building sophisticated conversational AI. Amazon Bedrock Agents: Experience with building multi-step, autonomous agents and orchestrating them with company systems and APIs.

Google Vertex AI Agent Builder: Experience developing and deploying multi-agent systems using an open and comprehensive platform.

Closing

At REI, we believe the outdoors is for all. We are committed to becoming a fully inclusive, anti-racist, multicultural organization. We know that there's strength in our diversity – that each employee brings unique skills, experiences, and perspectives. Every day you are driving change, fostering a culture of respect, and knowing you're backed by benefits that support your whole life. To work towards this commitment and fulfill our brand promise of inspiring and enabling a life outside for everyone, we seek employees who demonstrate different ways of working, create a sense of belonging, and actively listen and learn.

Pay Transparency We are committed to practices that promote pay equity and transparency. As required by applicable Pay Transparency laws, REI provides a range of compensation for roles that may be hired in locations under these requirements. Factors that may be used to determine your actual salary may include a wide array of factors, including: your specific skills and experience, geographic location or other relevant factors.

REI offers all regular employees a generous employee discount, access to health benefits, a retirement savings plan and accrued time off. Click here for a detailed overview of benefits plans by employee profile.

Pay Range

$144,000.00 - $244,800.00 per year