Sr. Engineer, AI & Automation

Overview

Great brands reflect culture. The best ones help shape it. At Foot Locker, we’re rooted in sport, powered by style, and driven by the communities that move both. From Foot Locker and Kids Foot Locker to Champs Sports, WSS, and atmos, our brands sit at the intersection of sport, style, and self-expression.

As part of the DICK’S Sporting Goods family, you’re backed by the resources, reach, and career opportunities of a world-class sports company. That unleashes Foot Locker to keep pushing forward with the agility and edge that define the brand. We’re looking for great people who want to influence culture and the generation that is shaping what’s next.

Whether you’re building strategy, shaping innovations, or creating unforgettable customer moments, you’ll contribute to decisions and experiences that define our brands’ impact in the communities we serve.

Come change the game with us. Apply today!

This Role is 100% REMOTE, US Based

At this time, Foot Locker will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization, or offer any immigration related support for this position (i.e. H1B, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, F-1 CPT, J-1, TN, or another type of work authorization.

Foot Locker is seeking an experienced and innovative Sr. Engineer, AI & Automation to design, develop, and deliver scalable AI, Generative AI, Agentic AI, and intelligent automation solutions across the retail enterprise.  This role will provide hands-on technical leadership in building AI agents, RAG solutions, automation workflows, APIs, and enterprise integrations using modern cloud and data platforms. The position will partner with architects, engineering teams, and business stakeholders to productionize secure, reliable, and governed AI solutions that improve merchandising, inventory, supply chain, store operations, digital commerce, customer experience, and enterprise analytics. Partner closely with business and technology leaders to architect next-generation AI solutions leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs), AI Agents, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), intelligent automation, and modern cloud-native platforms. This individual will provide deep technical leadership, establish enterprise AI governance frameworks, and drive innovation by transforming business processes into AI-enabled products and experiences.

AI products delivered by this team are used every day by store, merchandising, supply chain, digital commerce, and corporate teams across Foot Locker’s brands and digital channels.

Scope of the role: owns AI products and services end to end in production, including their evaluation, reliability, and cost profile, and sets implementation patterns for the team.

Responsibilities

This role will include, but will not be limited to the following responsibilities:

• Design and develop production-grade GenAI, Agentic AI, RAG, and automation solutions.
• Build AI agents and multi-agent workflows integrating enterprise data, APIs, applications, and business processes
• Develop RAG solutions using LLMs, embeddings, vector search, semantic retrieval, ontology and knowledge graph sources, and enterprise knowledge repositories
• Integrate AI solutions with platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, Azure, Power BI, APIs, and retail operational systems
• Build AI-enabled solutions for retail use cases including inventory intelligence, merchandising, supply chain, store operations, product insights, customer analytics, and business reporting
• Develop reusable AI services, APIs, frameworks, connectors, and automation components
• Implement LLMOps and CI/CD processes for automated testing, deployment, monitoring, prompt and model version management, and evaluation against groundedness, retrieval quality, task success, latency, and cost per task
• Implement AI guardrails, security, RBAC, PII protection, Responsible AI, logging, monitoring, and observability
• Optimize AI solutions for performance, scalability, reliability, token consumption, and cost
• Troubleshoot complex production issues and continuously improve AI platform capabilities
• Conduct technical reviews and mentor engineers on AI engineering and software development best practices
• Collaborate with architects to convert enterprise AI architecture and standards into production implementations

Qualifications

At Foot Locker, we value innovation, authenticity, and integrity in all that we do.  To uphold the security and fairness of our hiring process, we ask that candidates refrain from using AI tools, including ChatGPT, during interviews and assessments.  To ensure a smooth and secure experience, please review the following guidelines:

• Cameras must be on for all virtual interviews.
• AI tools are strictly prohibited during interviews or assessments.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation as we work together to create a transparent and equitable hiring experience.

• 4-7+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, applied AI engineering, automation, or related areas, with hands-on experience delivering AI solutions in production
• Strong experience with Python, SQL, REST APIs, JSON, and software engineering practices.
• Hands-on knowledge of LLMs, GenAI, RAG, Agentic AI, embeddings, vector databases/search, and prompt engineering
• Experience with frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, or equivalent agent/orchestration frameworks
• Experience with Azure OpenAI/OpenAI APIsor comparable enterprise LLM platforms
• Experience with Snowflake and/or Databricksand modern cloud data architectures
• Knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes, Git, CI/CD, Azure DevOps/GitHub, and Terraform
• Understanding of LLMOps, evaluation frameworks, AI observability, security, and Responsible AI
• Strong troubleshooting, problem-solving, technical leadership, and communication skills
• Experience in Retail, Digital Commerce, Supply Chain, or Customer Analytics domains preferred
• Experience working in Agile product delivery environments preferred
• Azure AI Engineer, Azure Solutions Architect, or equivalent certifications preferred

PREFERRED SKILLS

Experience with Snowflake Cortex AI, Databricks, the Microsoft Copilot ecosystem, Power BI/Fabric, Model Context Protocol (MCP), and document AI, or equivalent technologies. Experience with retail or supply chain systems and enterprise automation platforms is valued.

DESIRED CHARACTERISTICS

• Public cloud experience, preferably Azure or AWS
• Previous experience at a fortune 500 company

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES

The Sr. Engineer, AI & Automation role has no direct reports. The Sr. Engineer is expected to provide technical leadership, mentor engineers, and guide contract resources.

QUALIFICATIONS 

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. The successful candidate will have a high degree of motivation, exceptional attention to detail, and the ability to derive answers from communications with multiple parts of the business. This person will also require the ability to work well within a team atmosphere and has the flexibility to help with a variety of the department goals.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

Bachelor’s degree (B.S.) from a four-year college or university, or an Associate degree in programming from a technical college, and 6 or more years of related experience and/or training, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

The candidate must be able to communicate with others in a simple, clear, and understandable manner. Must also have the ability to read and interpret all forms of communication. The ability to write reports for management and professional correspondence, as well as to speak effectively before peers, management, customers, and other associates of the organization is required.

REASONING ABILITY

The candidate must effectively plan and execute unusual and difficult work. Takes initiative and is decisive and quick, when appropriate. All while adhering to the team’s standards and patterns and practices. Must have the ability to solve practical and impractical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists. Ability to interpret a variety of instructions furnished in written, oral, diagram, or schedule form. Deals constructively with conflict and disagreement.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS 

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit and talk or hear.  The employee must regularly lift and/or move up to 10 pounds.  Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, and ability to adjust focus.

WORK ENVIRONMENT 

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet, however positive, work-driven collaboration is encouraged. 

Benefits

The annual base salary range is $125,000 - $155,000 / year. This range represents the anticipated low and high end of the salary for this position. Salary will be determined by the education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of the applicant, internal equity, and alignment with market data. Salary is one component of the Foot Locker, Inc. total compensation package, which includes the below.

Foot Locker Benefits:

• Employee Discount
• Paid Time Off
• Medical | Dental | Vision Coverage
• 401(k) | Roth 401(k)
• Life Insurance
• Flexible Spending Account
• Opportunities for Advancement
• Tuition Reimbursement for Qualified Courses
• Strong Company Culture
• Employee Resource Groups