Principal Engineer

Impact

As a Principal Agentic Engineer in Gig Operations, you will architect and deploy Shipt's foundational Agentic AI platform to optimize real time routing, pay, and coverage across our national fulfillment network. You will spend your days collaborating with cross functional data science, engineering, and product teams to integrate autonomous reasoning loops, tool binding frameworks, and multi agent orchestration directly into high throughput microservices. Your work directly drives the core logic that powers millions of time-critical deliveries, ensuring our autonomous workflows remain fiscally responsible, highly reliable, and compliant at scale.

What You’ll Need to Be Successful

Required Skills

• •10+ years of backend software development experience architecting and operating high throughput, multi region distributed microservices
• •Ability to lead technical discussions, communicate complex ideas and concepts simply and concisely, drive consensus and ensure projects are delivered on time
• •Strong mentorship abilities to ensure we evolve our staff and senior engineers into future leaders
• •Experience coding in one or more of the following languages: Python/Golang
• •Experience with SOA, microservices, and distributed architectures.
• •Proven ability to build and deploy systems that use LLMs beyond simple chat interfaces
• •Ability to design offline and online evaluation strategies to measure agent performance, reliability, and business impact, including designing human-in-the-loop escalation triggers.
• •Proficiency with Google ADK, LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI, or similar orchestration platforms.
• •Experience with monitoring tools specifically designed for tracing and debugging agentic reasoning chains (e.g., LangSmith, Langfuse etc).

Preferred Skills

Experience in ML and DS modeling and optimization techniques

Ability to monitor and own the production services, including expertise in traditional observability tooling like DataDog.

Experience managing Agent FinOps, including monitoring token utilization, optimizing cost-per-execution, and ensuring AI initiatives are fiscally responsible and ROI-positive.

Experience implementing robust agent lifecycle management, including agent registration, approval workflows, and role-based access control (RBAC) to ensure consistent standards for identity and compliance.

Familiarity with vector storage and retrieval for RAG or memory implementation.

Experience integrating AI agents with real-time signal streams (e.g., location, weather, inventory) and complex persisted data models.

Experience with the components of intelligent systems: prompt engineering, agent definition, tool binding, reasoning loops, memory systems, and human-in-the-loop workflows.

Pay Range: $140,000 - $235,000

Please note that the salary range above is a guideline, and individual total compensation will vary based on factors such as qualifications, skill level, competencies, and work location.

Skills & Education

This list includes key skills used in this job but is not inclusive of all skills needed for the role. Please see any required education below.

AI, Back-End Development, Data Science, Distributed Architectures, Microservices ArchitectureBachelor's Degree or equivalent experience | Required

Work Arrangement

To foster connection while offering continued flexibility, hybrid team members have the following in-office expectations:

Hybrid roles in Birmingham, AL typically work in-office at least 2 days per week, with core in-office days on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Hybrid roles in Minneapolis, MN typically work in-office at least 1 day per week on either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

Hybrid roles in San Francisco, CA typically work in-office at least 1 day per week between Monday and Thursday.

Certain roles may require in-office presence on a full-time basis. Please work with your recruiter to learn more about the classification of this role.

About Shipt

Shipt is a retail tech company that connects people to reliable, high-quality delivery with a personal touch. Shipt connects customers to the things they want from the stores they love, retail businesses to more satisfied customers, and workers to new earning opportunities.

At Shipt, we aim to put our team first to boost a sense of belonging, spark opportunities for growth, provide unique benefits and commit to giving back to our communities in ways that make life better, both personally and professionally. We understand that our service, our culture, and our connection to our communities are only made better by every single person who shows up to work here every day. Learn More.

Shipt is an independently operated, wholly owned subsidiary of Target Corporation and available in more than 5,000 U.S. cities. Shipt was founded and is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. For more information, please visit Shipt’s company site at Shipt.com.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of r ace, color, national origin, ethnicity, religion or religious belief, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, military or veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Please inform your recruiting contact upon initial connection if you need a reasonable accommodation. If you need assistance filling out a job application, please complete this form .

For technical interviews, Shipt uses an online coding platform. In the event you may need a reasonable accommodation to use the online coding platform, please connect with your recruiter.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Employees (and eligible family members) are covered by medical, dental, vision and more. Employees may enroll in our company’s 401k plan. Employees will also be eligible to receive discretionary vacation for exempt team members, paid holidays throughout the calendar year and paid sick leave. Other compensation includes eligibility for an annual bonus and the potential for restricted stock units based on role.