Principal Engineer, AI-Driven Retail Systems

lululemon

Vancouver

Hybrid

CAD 196,000 - 258,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

Extended health and dental benefits

Mental health plans

Paid time off

Savings and retirement plan matching

Generous employee discount

Fitness & yoga classes

Parenthood top-up

Development course offerings

People networks, mentorship programs

Job summary

lululemon seeks a Principal Engineer, Retail Systems to define the technical vision for global store and guest experiences. You will lead architecture decisions, balance delivery needs with reliability, and apply AI-enabled development across core retail platforms.

You will collaborate with architects, product leaders, and business stakeholders to translate strategy into scalable roadmaps, while raising engineering standards and advancing AI-driven retail technology.

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in CS / information systems / IT or equivalent; Master’s preferred.
11+ years of progressive software engineering, large-scale system design, architecture, leadership.
Expert coding ability, production-quality code across languages/frameworks.
Deep experience with complex, interconnected systems and durable trade-offs.
Experience using AI-assisted development and automation to improve productivity.
Technical depth across engineering domains with strategic breadth.
Ability to influence strategy, investment, and AI adoption with credibility.
Strong communication, able to explain complex concepts to stakeholders.
Experience improving platform health, quality, observability, and reliability.
Experience with retail systems, commerce, store tech, payments, inventory, or enterprise environments.

Responsibilities

Define the technical vision, system design, and implementation for major retail initiatives.
Serve as senior technical authority across complex retail platforms (POS, mobile commerce, payments, inventory, etc.).
Write high-quality production code for hard challenges, including AI-enabled tooling and agentic development.
Partner with architects, product leaders, and stakeholders to translate strategy into scalable architecture and roadmaps.
Lead cross-team integrations across retail platforms and enterprise systems.
Raise engineering standards: code quality, reliability, observability, deployment readiness, debt management.
Identify and mitigate systemic risks, reliability gaps, and AI governance needs affecting operations.