Principal Software Engineer

Your Impact

As a Principal Software Engineer with a focus on Digital AI/ML applications, you will shape the future of intelligent retail technology by driving innovation in artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions. This role will design, implement, and deliver cross-functional, AI-powered solutions to address highly complex challenges. You will provide technical leadership, guide the adoption of advanced AI/ML systems, and cultivate an engineering culture that emphasizes data-driven decision-making, scalability, and continuous learning.

What You Will Do

• AI/ML Solution Leadership: Define and execute the technical strategy for AI/ML-driven retail technologies in alignment with business objectives, working closely with senior leadership.

• Problem Solving with AI: Identify challenging problems faced by customers, engineers, and business leaders, and design intelligent, data-driven solutions leveraging machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and recommendation systems.

• Scalable Architecture: Decompose complex AI/ML problems into modular, scalable solutions that evolve with emerging technologies and enterprise needs.

• Deployment & Integration: Partner with product owners and stakeholders to ensure seamless deployment and adoption of AI/ML systems, integrating models into production environments with low latency, resilience, and observability.

• Tradeoff Analysis: Evaluate and balance tradeoffs in AI/ML system design—accuracy vs. performance, automation vs. human oversight, cost-effectiveness vs. innovation—to deliver business value.

• Software Engineering Excellence: Champion modern software and MLOps methodologies, including continuous training, automated deployment pipelines, model monitoring, and performance tuning.

• Technical Depth: Provide leadership in AI/ML system design, ensuring high-quality architectures and secure, ethical use of data. Dive deep into complex system issues, performing root cause analysis for production challenges.

• Testing & Reliability: Implement robust testing strategies for ML models and applications, including unit tests, regression suites, A/B testing, model validation, and bias/fairness evaluation.

• Optimization & Documentation: Continuously monitor and optimize AI/ML applications for accuracy, latency, and user experience while maintaining comprehensive documentation of models, features, and processes.

• Innovation Culture: Foster a culture of experimentation, structured problem-solving, and adoption of state-of-the-art AI/ML technologies. Stay ahead of global trends in AI research and best practices.

• Open Source Engagement: Explore and adopt open-source AI frameworks, contributing back to the community where possible.

• Operational Excellence: Minimize operational overhead by ensuring dashboards, monitoring, alerts, and runbooks are AI/ML-aware and well-maintained.

• Mentorship & Leadership: Mentor engineers in AI/ML best practices, architecture, and implementation, providing high-quality code, reusable libraries, and frameworks as exemplars.

Required Qualifications

• 10 years of experience in software development or related field

• 8 years of experience in any of the following: software engineering competencies—frontend technologies (UI/UX), middleware (microservices and APIs), database technologies, DevOps

• 8 years of experience working on project(s) involving the implementation of solutions applying development life cycles (SDLC)

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer information systems (CIS), or related field (or equivalent work experience in lieu of degree)

Preferred Skills / Education

• Master’s degree in computer science, CIS, or related field

• 8 years of experience building scalable AI/ML applications on google cloud or similar cloud platforms

• 8 years of experience with four or more of the following: CI/CD tools, distributed systems, database technologies, VertexAI, or AI/ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn, etc.)

• 8 years of experience in systems analysis, defining technical requirements, and performing high-level design for complex AI/ML solutions

• 6 years of experience applying IT Infrastructure Library frameworks with AI/ML system operations

• 6 years of experience leading engineering teams, with or without direct reports

About Lowe's

Lowe’s is a FORTUNE® 100 home improvement company serving approximately 16 million customer transactions a week in the United States. With total fiscal year 2024 sales of more than $83 billion, Lowe’s operates over 1,700 home improvement stores and employs approximately 300,000 associates. Based in Mooresville, N.C., Lowe’s supports the communities it serves through programs
focused on creating safe, affordable housing, improving community spaces, helping to develop the next generation of skilled trade experts and providing disaster relief to communities in need. For more information, visit Lowes.com.

Lowe’s is an equal opportunity employer and administers all personnel practices without regard to race, color, religious creed, sex, gender, age, ancestry, national origin, mental or physical disability or medical condition, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, military or veteran status, genetic information, or any other category protected under federal, state, or local law.