T

Target

Sells everyday goods and affordable designer styles

Senior Engineer - Apply For Circlecard

Full-Time
$98k - $176k
Senior
Bachelor's
Brooklyn Park, MN, USA
HybridHybrid work requires both on-site work at Target HQ in Minnesota and virtual work.
Software EngineeringAI Application Engineering, Backend Engineering
Company Historically Provides H1B Sponsorship

About the job

Requirements
  • A four-year degree or equivalent practical experience.
  • At least five years of software engineering experience building enterprise-scale applications and backend systems.
  • Hands-on experience designing and deploying production AI applications, AI-powered tools, or agentic systems using modern large language models.
  • Experience building autonomous or multi-agent workflows using Model Context Protocol, LangGraph, LangChain, CrewAI, Google ADK, Semantic Kernel, or equivalent orchestration frameworks.
  • Strong understanding of AI application architecture, including prompt engineering, context engineering, retrieval-augmented generation, tool calling, memory management, orchestration patterns, and AI evaluation.
  • Experience optimizing AI applications for quality, latency, token efficiency, and inference cost while implementing responsible AI, governance, and observability practices.
  • Proficiency in Python for AI application development, automation, or AI tooling.
  • Expert-level proficiency in Kotlin and Java, with experience building microservices using Micronaut and/or Spring Boot.
  • Strong experience designing distributed systems, RESTful APIs, Kafka-based event-driven architectures, PostgreSQL, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, and modern continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines.
  • Experience building highly available, resilient, secure, and observable production services.
  • Experience mentoring engineers, leading design discussions, and driving engineering best practices.
Responsibilities
  • Leverage AI-assisted software development tools throughout the software development lifecycle, including solution design, implementation, testing, debugging, documentation, and code reviews.
  • Collaborate with AI coding assistants and enterprise AI platforms to improve engineering productivity while maintaining code quality, security, architecture, and maintainability.
  • Validate AI-generated code and technical recommendations through testing, peer reviews, and established software engineering practices.
  • Design and build production AI-powered applications using approved AI platforms, frameworks, and large language models.
  • Design and build production-grade autonomous and agentic AI systems capable of reasoning, planning, tool orchestration, memory management, and multi-step workflow execution.
  • Develop domain-specific AI agents and multi-agent workflows using orchestration frameworks to automate engineering processes and enhance retail and enterprise experiences.
  • Design and implement prompt engineering and context engineering strategies to improve application quality, reliability, and relevance.
  • Build retrieval-augmented generation solutions using enterprise knowledge sources, vector search technologies, and semantic retrieval.
  • Optimize AI applications for response quality, latency, throughput, token utilization, and inference cost.
  • Implement AI evaluation frameworks and apply responsible AI, security, privacy, governance, and observability practices.
  • Build reusable AI components, frameworks, libraries, workflows, and engineering accelerators that improve developer productivity.
  • Evaluate emerging AI capabilities, lead proof-of-concept initiatives, and recommend adoption strategies that deliver measurable business value.
  • Partner across engineering teams to integrate AI capabilities into products, platforms, and software development workflows.
  • Design, develop, and maintain highly scalable AI-ready services using Kotlin, Java, and Micronaut.
  • Build secure, high-performance RESTful APIs and event-driven services supporting high-volume retail and financial workloads.
  • Design distributed systems using Kafka, asynchronous messaging, distributed caching, and cloud-native architecture patterns.
  • Design and optimize PostgreSQL databases, including data modeling, indexing, query optimization, and transactional integrity.
  • Build resilient, highly available services with strong fault tolerance, scalability, and operational excellence.
  • Lead technical design discussions, architecture reviews, code reviews, and implementation planning.
  • Improve platform observability using OpenTelemetry, distributed tracing, metrics, logging, and production monitoring.
  • Continuously improve application performance, scalability, resiliency, observability, and operational health.
  • Partner with Product Management, UX, Architecture, Infrastructure, Data, and business stakeholders to deliver customer-focused solutions.
  • Apply and maintain knowledge of current and emerging technologies within specialized technology areas; evaluate new technologies based on viability, maintainability, and cost of ownership.
  • Initiate and execute research and proof-of-concept activities for new technologies.
  • Manage total product financials and forecasting.
  • Lead the design, lifecycle management, and total cost of ownership of services.
  • Lead and conduct code review, design review, testing, and debugging at the application level.
  • Lead functional design and architecture discussions using process flows and system diagrams to enable design decisions.
  • Participate in routine and non-routine construction, automation, and implementation activities, ensuring architectural and operational requirements and best practices are met.
  • Provide technical oversight and coach others to resolve complex and severe technical issues.
  • Lead disaster recovery activities and contribute to disaster recovery planning.
  • Embed data quality protocols throughout data acquisition, processing, storage, and operational use.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience working on workflow orchestration platforms such as Temporal.
  • Experience creating reusable AI workflows or “skills” to enable efficient, repeatable engineering tasks.
  • Experience working on the Target Register platform.

About the company

Target sells groceries, clothing, home goods and other everyday products to U.S. shoppers through stores and its website, with an emphasis on affordable style and design. Its own brands include Cat & Jack children's clothing and Good & Gather food, alongside national brands and exclusive designer collections. Customers shop in person or order online for shipping, pickup or delivery, while Target Plus adds products from outside sellers. Merchandise sales drive its revenue, supplemented by Roundel advertising, marketplace fees and paid memberships. The company traces its roots to 1902, opened its first Target store in 1962, and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.

Company Size

10,001+

Company Stage

N/A

Total Funding

N/A

Headquarters

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Founded

1902

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Demand is recovering: August 2026 results showed fiscal second quarter comparable sales up 3.8% and total sales up 5.3%.
  • Store investment expands project scope: March 2026 plans earmarked $5 billion for stores, technology and supply chains.
  • U.S. employees get study support immediately: Target funds selected tuition programs for full-time and part-time staff from day one.

What critics are saying

  • Pricing is exposed to import costs: about half Target's merchandise originates abroad, with China its largest import source.
  • Profit comparisons flatter the turnaround: August 2026 earnings included $1.65 per share from tariff refunds.
  • Corporate roles faced cuts: October 2025 restructuring targeted about 1,000 employees and 800 vacancies.

What makes Target unique

  • Design work reaches shelves at scale: Target's owned brands generate over $30 billion annually.
  • Stores power online economics: Target stores fulfilled 97.6% of merchandise sales in fiscal 2025.
  • Target's delivery membership reaches beyond its shelves: Circle 360 covers Shipt's more than 100 retail partners.

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Benefits

Health Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

Life Insurance

Disability Insurance

Paid Sick Leave

Paid Holidays

Paid Vacation

401(k) Retirement Plan

Employee Discounts

Growth & Insights

Headcount

6 month growth

-2%

1 year growth

-2%

2 year growth

-2%