Lead Engineer - Modernization Team

Target; Brooklyn Park (MN); Hybrid; USD 132,000 - 238,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive health benefits

401(k)

Employee discount

Paid vacation

Job summary

Target in Brooklyn Park, MN is seeking a Lead Engineer to serve as the technical anchor for the engineering team. This role involves designing and maintaining application architecture while influencing a wider team. In addition to a competitive pay range, Target provides a hybrid work arrangement and comprehensive benefits, ensuring employee well-being.

The ideal candidate will have a degree or equivalent experience alongside strong development skills, particularly in Java, Python, and GenAI capabilities. You will lead research and proof-of-concept activities for new technologies, establishing best practices for high-performance deliverables.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software development experience with at least one full-cycle implementation.
• Demonstrates strong domain-specific knowledge regarding Target’s technology capabilities.
• Hands-on experience with modern LLM ecosystems (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.).

Responsibilities

• Lead as the technical anchor for the engineering team.
• Drive architectural changes to accelerate development and improve service quality.
• Develop plans, schedules, and define milestones and deliverables.

Skills

Java

Python

PostgreSQL

Open/Elasticsearch

Object Storage (S3)

GenAI capabilities

Stakeholder communication

Education

4-year degree or equivalent experience

Job description

The pay range is $132,000.00 - $238,000.00. 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 educational to well‑being and beyond at https://corporate.target.com/careers/benefits.

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.

Lead Engineer Role

As a Lead Engineer, you serve as the technical anchor for the engineering team that supports a product. You create, own, and are responsible for the application architecture that best serves the product in its functional and non‑functional needs. You identify and drive architectural changes to accelerate feature development or improve the quality of service (or both). You have deep and broad engineering skills and are capable of standing up an architecture in its whole on your own, but you choose to influence a wider team by acting as a ‘force multiplier’.

The Target Technology Modernization team is focused on transforming and replacing legacy systems by building next‑generation applications and products. We leverage cutting‑edge generative AI platforms, large language model (LLM) techniques, and advanced prompt engineering to accelerate code generation, model adaptation, inference optimization, and modernize software development.

Our engineering team is responsible for end‑to‑end delivery including design, architecture, and implementation of scalable, high‑quality software solutions aligned with modern technology standards. This work often involves research, experimentation, and iterative development as we continuously learn, evolve, and scale our solutions to meet enterprise needs.

Use your skills, experience, and talents to be a part of groundbreaking thinking and visionary goals. As a Lead Engineer, you’ll lead in applying and maintaining knowledge of current and emerging technologies within specialized areas of the technology domain. You evaluate new technologies and participate in decision‑making, accounting for several factors such as viability within Target’s technical environment, maintainability, and cost of ownership. You initiate and execute research and proof‑of‑concept activities for new technologies. You lead or set strategy for testing and debugging at the platform or enterprise level. In complex and unstructured situations, you serve as an expert resource to create and improve standards and best practices to ensure high‑performance, scalable, repeatable, and secure deliverables. You lead the design, lifecycle management, and total cost of ownership of services. You provide the team with thought leadership to promote re‑use and develop consistent, scalable patterns. You participate in planning services that have enterprise impact. You provide suggestions for handling routine and moderately complex technical problems, escalating issues when appropriate. You gather information, data, and input from a wide variety of sources; identify additional resources when appropriate, engage with appropriate stakeholders, and conduct in‑depth analysis of information. You develop plans and schedules, estimate resource requirements, and define milestones and deliverables. You monitor workflow and risks; play a leadership role in mitigating risks and removing obstacles. You lead and participate in complex construction, automation, and implementation activities, ensuring successful implementation with architectural and operational requirements met. You establish new standards and best practices to monitor, test, automate, and maintain IT components or systems. You serve as an expert resource in disaster recovery and disaster recovery planning. You stay current with Target’s technical capabilities, infrastructure, and technical environment. You develop fully attributed data models, including logical, physical, and canonical. You influence data standards, policies, and procedures. You install, configure, and/or tune data management solutions with minimal guidance. You monitor data‑management solution(s) and identify optimization opportunities.

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
• 7+ years of software development experience with at least one full‑cycle implementation
• Demonstrates strong domain‑specific knowledge regarding Target’s technology capabilities, and key competitors’ products and differentiating features
• Proficiency in Java and Python
• Hands‑on experience with modern LLM ecosystems (OpenAI, Anthropic, Llama, Gemini, etc.) and productionizing GenAI capabilities
• Experience with PostgreSQL, Open/Elasticsearch, Object Storage (S3/etc.)
• Strong knowledge of emerging GenAI patterns, frameworks, and use‑cases, including:
• LangGraph / LangChain / Google GenAI, etc.
• Context Engineering / RAG / Agentic AI
• Demonstrates broad and deep expertise in multiple computer languages and frameworks (e.g., open source). Designs, develops, and approves end‑to‑end functionality of a product line, platform, or infrastructure
• Strong stakeholder communication and ability to lead through influence across teams and partners
• Experience designing scalable, reliable systems with strong performance, cost, and operational health awareness
• Stays current with new and evolving technologies via formal training and self‑directed education. Experience in building highly scalable distributed systems

Work Arrangement

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.

Benefits Eligibility

Please visit https://tgt.biz/BenefitsForYou_E to learn about benefits eligibility for this role.

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 [e-mail]. Non‑accommodation‑related requests, such as application follow‑ups or technical issues, will not be addressed through this channel.