Sr Engineer - AI Platform Think Tank (Python, Java, Gen AI, Agentic AI)

Job Id: R0000438937

The pay range is $98,000.00 - $176,000.00

Pay is based on several factors which vary based on position. These include labor markets and in some instances may include education, work experience and certifications. In addition to your pay, Target cares about and invests in you as a team member, so that you can take care of yourself and your family. Target offers eligible team members and their dependents comprehensive health benefits and programs, which may include medical, vision, dental, life insurance and more, to help you and your family take care of your whole selves. Other benefits for eligible team members include 401(k), employee discount, short term disability, long term disability, paid sick leave, paid national holidays, and paid vacation. Find competitive benefits from financial and education to well-being and beyond at https://corporate.target.com/careers/benefits.

JOIN TARGET AS A SR ENGINER – AI PLATFORM TEAM (THINK TANK)

About us:

Working at Target means helping all families discover the joy of everyday life. We bring that vision to life through our values and culture. Learn more about Target here.

This role offers the opportunity to work on high-impact AI platform capabilities at Target, helping shape how engineering teams responsibly adopt GenAI, agent-based workflows, and scalable AI-powered solutions. You will be part of a platform team focused on innovation, engineering excellence, operational stability, and practical application of emerging AI technologies.

As a Sr Engineer – AI on Target’s Think Tank Platform Engineering / AI Platform team, you will help design, build, and scale modern AI-powered engineering capabilities that support Target’s broader technology ecosystem.

You will own feature development end-to-end, contribute to scalable platform solutions, support production systems, and help advance the responsible use of GenAI and agent-based technologies across the platform. This role requires strong engineering fundamentals, hands-on software development experience, and the ability to partner closely with product, engineering, and business stakeholders.

As a Senior Engineer – AI Platform you will:

• Participate in Agile team ceremonies, including daily stand-ups, sprint planning, backlog refinement, and retrospectives.
• Partner with product managers, engineering teams, and stakeholders to deepen domain knowledge and align technical work to business outcomes.
• Own feature development end-to-end, including design, implementation, testing, deployment, and production support.
• Design and implement solutions that are testable, supportable, secure, scalable, and aligned with architectural standards.
• Write clean, maintainable, and secure code across multiple languages and technology paradigms.
• Contribute to code reviews and design reviews to maintain engineering quality and consistency.
• Support operational stability, troubleshoot issues, and resolve production problems with minimal oversight.
• Participate in on-call support after onboarding and ramp-up.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and contribute to research, proof-of-concept work, and platform innovation.

GenAI and Agent Responsibilities:

• Leverage GenAI tools and AI-assisted development workflows to improve development speed, code quality, testing, and documentation. Co-pilot, Skills,
• Design, build, and integrate GenAI-powered applications, agent-based systems, and orchestration workflows where appropriate. LangGraph, LangChain, Google ADK, python
• Apply strong engineering judgment to validate AI and agent outputs for correctness, reliability, security, and compliance
• Help define and evolve best practices for responsible, scalable adoption of GenAI and agent technologies across the platform
• Improve prompting strategies, tool usage patterns, workflow automation, and agent reliability

Core responsibilities of this job are described within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs.

About you:

• 4-year degree or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of software development experience
• Strong knowledge of software engineering principles, distributed systems, scalable application design and secure coding practices
• Demonstrated programming experience with Python, Java, Kotlin, or similar object-oriented programming languages
• Experience with Spring Boot/Micronaut or similar backend application frameworks
• Experience with Kafka or similar messaging and data movement systems
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, scalable architecture, storage, caching, and CI/CD practices
• Experience building or integrating GenAI-powered applications or agent-based systems preferred
• Familiarity with agent orchestration frameworks, tool usage patterns, and workflow automation
• Strong understanding of responsible AI practices, including output validation, guardrails, compliance, and data security
• Frontend development exposure in JavaScript or TypeScript a plus
• Experience evaluating and improving prompts, tool usage, agent reliability, and AI-assisted workflows
• Experience applying data standards, policies and procedures
• Strong ownership mindset with the ability to align teams around priorities
• Ability to clearly communicate technical and Agile concepts to product partners and cross-functional stakeholders
• Maintains technical knowledge within areas of expertise
• Stays current with new and evolving technologies via formal training and self-directed education

This position will operate as a Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement based on Target’s needs. A Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement means the team member’s core role will need to be performed both onsite at the Target HQ MN location the role is assigned to and virtually, depending upon what your role, team and tasks require for that day. Work duties cannot be performed outside of the country of the primary work location, unless otherwise prescribed by Target. Click here if you are curious to learn more about Minnesota.

Benefits Eligibility

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

In compliance with state and federal laws, Target will make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please reach out to candidate.accommodations@HRHelp.Target.com. Non-accommodation-related requests, such as application follow-ups or technical issues, will not be addressed through this channel.