Principal, UX Designer / Engineer - AI Systems

Position Summary...

What You'Ll Do...

Principal Ux Designer / Engineer, Ai Systems – Design Organization

What You'Ll Do

As a Principal UX Designer / Engineer, AI Systems in the Design Organization, you will:

• Implement and Productionize AI Systems: Partner with design, product, and engineering leaders to translate the AI roadmap into scalable, secure, and resilient solutions that meet the needs of the Design Organization.
• Drive AI Innovation: Identify and deliver high-impact opportunities where generative AI, LLMs, and intelligent automation can enhance creative workflows, product discovery, design quality, and speed.
• Build and Scale Production Services: Develop reliable backend services in Python and Node.js, focusing on performance, resilience, and observability. Harden prototypes into production-ready, secure, and scalable services within Walmart-approved infrastructure and guardrails.
• Integrate with Walmart Ecosystem: Ensure seamless integration with Walmart identity, networking, data platforms, observability, and compliance controls (e.g., SSO, secrets management, service mesh).
• Define Production-Readiness: Establish gates for POCs, including SLA/SLO targets, error budgets, performance baselines, cost limits, capacity planning, disaster recovery, and runbooks.
• Operational Excellence: Drive CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and migration of prototypes to dev, stage, and prod environments. Ensure operational ownership with alerting, on-call strategies, incident response, and continuous improvement.
• Architect AI-Powered Design Tools: Lead the technical design and architecture of internal tools and subsystems that empower designers, researchers, and content strategists. Build scalable, reusable infrastructure for organization-wide AI applications.
• Mentor and Uplift Technical Craft: Guide engineers and architects through complex architecture decisions, rapid prototyping, and AI tool selection. Foster a culture of experimentation, technical excellence, and responsible innovation.
• Promote AI Thought Leadership: Represent the Design Organization in internal AI communities, share learnings, and influence AI adoption across Walmart.

What You'Ll Bring

• Programming: Expert in Python and Node.js for backend services, data pipelines, and AI integration.
• Kubernetes & Cloud-Native: Deep experience with Kubernetes, Helm/Kustomize, GitOps (Argo CD/Flux), service mesh (Istio/Linkerd), autoscaling, security, and cost optimization.
• CI/CD & Infrastructure: Proficient with Jenkins (or equivalent), Terraform/CloudFormation, blue-green/canary deployments, feature flags, automated testing, and rollback strategies.
• Data & Storage: Strong experience with SQL (Postgres, MySQL, SQL Server, Snowflake) and NoSQL (DynamoDB, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, Elasticsearch) databases, including schema design, optimization, and scaling. Familiarity with vector databases and embedding stores.
• APIs & Integration: Skilled in REST and GraphQL, secure service-to-service authentication, rate limiting, quotas, and event streaming (Kafka/Pub/Sub).
• Observability: Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, tracing, metrics, log aggregation, SLOs, error budgets, and incident response.

Minimum Qualifications

• 12+ years in software or platform engineering, delivering production systems at scale
• 7+ years combined professional experience in Python and Node.js (minimum 4+ years in each)
• 4+ years operating workloads in Kubernetes in production
• 5+ years designing and operating both SQL and NoSQL data models
• 2+ years building or operating ML/LLM-powered applications in production
• 5+ years leading cross-functional architecture and mentoring senior engineers
• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent practical experience
• Strong communication skills and a portfolio of shipped systems with measurable impact

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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San Bruno, California US-08848:The annual salary range for this position is $143,000.00-$286,000.00

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Bentonville, Arkansas US-09401: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 UI/UX design, graphic design, visual communication, product design, computer science, information technology, or related area and 5 years’ experience in UI/UX, interactive and visual design, electronics art, multimedia design, or related area. Option 2: 7 years’ experience in UI/UX, interactive and visual design, electronics art, multimedia design, or related area.

Preferred Qualifications...

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

Design certification (for example, IDEOU - Foundations in Design Thinking Certificate), Driving product development in a user experience area, Master's degree in UI/UX Design, Interactive and Visual Design, Product Design, or related area, Related industry experience (for example, retail, supply chain, eCommerce, healthcare), UI/UX, Interactive and Visual Design, Electronics Art, Multimedia Design, 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.Masters: Architecture, Masters: Artificial Intelligence, Masters: Business, Masters: Cognitive Science, Masters: Computer Science

Primary Location...

850 Cherry Avenue, San Bruno, CA 94066-3031, United States of AmericaWalmart and its subsidiaries are committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace and has a no tolerance policy regarding the use of illegal drugs and alcohol on the job. This policy applies to all employees and aims to create a safe and productive work environment.