Principal AI/ML Engineer

About the role

The Enterprise Data & AI organization at lululemon is a strategic and operational driver of growth. They own and build the data and AI platforms and services that enable the enterprise to operate with intelligence at scale. The team focuses on creating a trusted unified data foundation, AI-driven data analytics and insights, and AI solutions across lululemon’s vertically integrated retail ecosystem, while embedding strong data governance and responsible AI practices.

Responsibilities

• Define the enterprise AI/ML engineering vision and implementation strategy spanning the enterprise AI platform and services, and common frameworks and tools for model development, training infrastructure, inference platforms, evaluation frameworks, and governance capabilities.
• Drive implementation of major AI initiatives, ensuring scalable, reliable, secure, and cost-effective AI solutions across the enterprise.
• Develop critical components of AI platforms, ML infrastructure, and production AI systems when hands-on technical leadership is required.
• Partner with enterprise architects, product team, and the Data and AI team to shape company-wide AI architecture, providing deep technical expertise on implementation feasibility, operational considerations, scalability, and long-term maintainability.
• Lead technical design of foundation model services, generative AI solutions, and agentic frameworks, challenge and improve existing AI architectures by identifying platform limitations, technical risks, and opportunities for innovation, proposing solutions that advance enterprise AI capabilities.
• Provide executive-level technical advisory on complex AI investments, build-versus-buy decisions, model strategy, technology selection, responsible AI considerations, and implementation risk assessment.
• Drive enterprise-wide AI/ML engineering practices including model lifecycle management, experimentation standards, evaluation methodologies, observability, reliability, and responsible AI controls.
• Influence product strategy and business investment decisions through technical insights on AI feasibility, value realization, scalability, and organizational impact.
• Drive engineering productivity and AI adoption across multiple teams through platform enhancements, reusable AI capabilities, automation, and reduction of systemic technical barriers.
• Mentor Senior and Staff engineers while developing the next generation of AI technical leaders across the organization.
• Represent lululemon externally through industry conferences, technical publications, open-source contributions, and participation in the broader AI community.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent experience; Master's preferred.
• 11-15+ years of progressive software engineering and AI/ML engineering experience, including significant experience designing and operating enterprise-scale AI systems and platforms, or equivalent.
• Expert-level coding ability with a track record of developing production-grade AI/ML systems, platforms, and infrastructure that solve highly complex technical and business challenges.
• Retail experience preferred.
• Deep expertise across system design for complex ML solutions, model deployments, batch and real-time services, and evaluation frameworks.
• Proven experience defining implementation strategies and execution approaches for complex, cross-organizational AI initiatives with measurable business impact.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate and guide adoption of emerging AI technologies.
• Advanced experience with implementing AI/ML engineering solutions using python, Spark, Airflow, MLFlow, feature stores, vector databases, model serving platforms, cloud AI services, Kubernetes, and modern MLOps tooling.

Additional Notes

• Please note: Applicants must be authorized to work for ANY employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment visa at this time for this role.
• Compensation And Benefits Package: The typical hiring range for this position is from $266,720 - $350,070 annually ; the base pay offered is based on market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and internal equity.
• Note: The incentive programs, benefits, and perks have certain eligibility requirements. The Company reserves the right to alter these incentive programs, benefits, and perks in whole or in part at any time without advance notice.
• Workplace arrangement: In-person collaboration and connection is important to our culture. Work is performed onsite, minimum 4 days per week.