Engineer 1: Agentic AI - Inventory Solutions (Hybrid - Seattle, WA)

Nordstrom Inc; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 105,000 - 163,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Vision

Dental

401k and PTO

Life Insurance

Disability

Merchandise Discount

EAP Resources

Comprehensive benefits

Job summary

Nordstrom is seeking an Engineer 1 to grow foundational skills in agentic AI on production inventory systems. You'll implement components, write tests, and learn how production agentic systems are designed and operated inside a large retail enterprise.

You’ll work with teams across engineering, product, and business to apply context engineering and ensure reliable, auditable AI-powered inventory decisions.

Qualifications

• 1+ year of professional software engineering experience or a relevant certification.
• Hands-on exposure to LLMs or foundation models via coursework or work.
• Curiosity about agentic AI and production skills in this space.
• Strong CS fundamentals and RESTful API experience.

Responsibilities

• Implement components of agentic inventory solutions under guidance.
• Learn context engineering and grounding agents with inventory data.
• Build and run evaluation scripts and offline benchmarks for safety and accuracy.
• Participate in on-call rotations and design reviews.
• Add instrumentation and follow security standards.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, and business stakeholders.

Skills

AI Fluency

RESTful APIs

Git

LangGraph

CrewAI

Communication skills

Education

Certification (Bootcamp)

Tools

Jira

Slack

Confluence

Docker

Kubernetes

Python

Java / Spring Boot

Kafka

Job description

Job Description

Nordstrom runs on knowing what inventory it has, where it is, and whether the record can be trusted. The Inventory Integration Systems team owns that truth across a multi-market, multi-channel business — the platforms that track in-transit inventory, reconcile audits, capture vendor data, and keep enterprise inventory accurate for every downstream system that depends on it. We are now applying agentic AI to that mission. Across platforms like AURA (audit unification using RAG-based AI), IAP (Inventory Audit Platform), OmniTrace (in-transit dashboard and ledger), and our PADLC agent pipeline, we’re building agents that don’t just report on inventory problems — they investigate them, correlate signals, and take scoped action. This is applied AI on a real, high-stakes retail domain, not a research sandbox. As an Engineer 1, you are an early-in-career individual contributor building your foundation in agentic AI engineering on top of production inventory systems. You’ll work under the guidance of senior engineers on well-scoped units of work — implementing agent components, writing tests, and learning how production agentic systems are designed, evaluated, and operated inside a large enterprise. This is a great role for someone early in their career who is curious about applied AI, excited to grow into a full agentic solutions engineer, and interested in the retail supply-chain and inventory problem space.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Implement individual components of agentic inventory solutions — tool integrations (Jira, Slack, Confluence, internal inventory APIs), prompt templates, and retrieval steps — under the direction of senior engineers, writing clean, well-tested code and documenting your work clearly.

Learn how the team applies context engineering — what an agent sees, when, and why — including how we ground agents in inventory context (audit records, ledger state, vendor data) so their answers are accurate and traceable.

Help build and run evaluation scripts and offline benchmarks to check that agent behavior is safe, accurate, and reliable — especially where inventory decisions carry financial implications.

Participate in on-call rotations and design reviews, learning to debug issues and surface trade-offs on the specific functions or components you own.

Add basic instrumentation — logging, metrics, alerts — to the systems you build, and follow Nordstrom’s engineering and security standards, including secure handling of sensitive inventory and vendor data.

Collaborate across engineering, product, and business stakeholders to understand how your work fits into the larger inventory platform and where agentic AI can meaningfully reduce manual audit and reconciliation effort.

YOU OWN THIS IF YOU HAVE…

Must Have

• 1+ years of professional software engineering experience (internships count), or a relevant certification (e.g. bootcamp).
• AI Fluency Required — Some hands-on exposure to LLMs or foundation model APIs (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, etc.), whether through coursework, projects, internships, or professional experience.
• Genuine curiosity about agentic AI — how agents use tools, retrieve context, and take actions — and a desire to build production skills in this space.
• Solid CS fundamentals — data structures, algorithms, and object-oriented design — along with familiarity with RESTful APIs, JSON, and how services communicate with one another.
• Basic understanding of software testing practices and version control (e.g. Git).
• Willingness to learn modern agentic frameworks such as LangGraph, CrewAI, Semantic Kernel, or the Claude Agent SDK.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, and a collaborative, feedback-seeking mindset.

Nice to Have

• Coursework, personal projects, or internship experience involving prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or vector databases.
• Exposure to a backend language and framework such as Java / Spring Boot or Python, and to messaging middleware like Kafka.
• Exposure to cloud platforms such as AWS or GCP, containerization (Docker / Kubernetes), and CI/CD basics.
• Familiarity with backend databases (e.g. Spanner, Postgres).
• Interest or coursework in retail, e-commerce, supply chain, or inventory problem spaces.
• Any contributions to open-source AI projects or personal experimentation with LLM applications.

Pay Range Details

Pay range(s) below has been provided in compliance with state specific laws. Pay ranges may be different for other locations. Pay offers are dependent on the location, as well as job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. $104,500.00 - $162,500.00 Annual

Benefits

• Medical/Vision
• Dental
• Retirement and Paid Time Away
• Life Insurance
• Disability
• Merchandise Discount
• EAP Resources
• Benefits include 401k, medical/vision/dental/life/disability insurance options, PTO accruals, Holidays, and more. Eligibility requirements may apply based on location, job level, classification, and length of employment.

Location & Legal

For Los Angeles or San Francisco applicants: Nordstrom is required to inform you that we conduct background checks after conditional offer and consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with legal requirements per Los Angeles, Cal. Muni. Code 189.04 and the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. For additional state and location specific notices, please refer to the Legal Notices document within the FAQ section of the Nordstrom Careers site. Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation should contact the nearest Nordstrom location, which can be identified at www.nordstrom.com. Please be mindful that there may be legal notices and requirements related to this job posting that are specific to your state. Review the Career Site FAQ’s for relevant information and guidelines.

About Us

We’re a fast-moving fashion company that started as a shoe store in 1901. This heritage of service is the foundation we’re building on as we provide convenience and true connection for our customers. We empower our people to be innovative, creative and focused on providing the best service to our customers. Through it all, we remain committed to leaving the world better than we found it. Whether you’re a genius engineer, a phenomenal salesperson or a supply chain pro, we invite you to bring your unique talents and join our team. We reward great work, promote from within and celebrate diversity.

CUSTOMER OBSESSED

We strive to know our customers better than anyone else. We listen, anticipate, build trust and move with speed to deliver on their needs.

OWNERS AT HEART

We treat every interaction as an opportunity to make an impact and deliver excellence.

CURIOUS AND EVER CHANGING

We approach problems with curiosity and create solutions. We unlock potential to be bold, think big and inspire innovation.

HERE TO WIN

We’re committed to delivering results, both today and tomorrow. We win as a team by supporting and challenging one another to be better every day.

WE EXTEND OURSELVES

We treat each other with respect and kindness. We do the small things that make a big difference. We create a welcoming environment, helping people feel connected, valued and part of one community. Come on!