Principal Engineer, Agentic Applications

Gap Inc.; South Carolina; On-site; USD 210,000 - 273,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Merchandise discount

Paid Time Off

Volunteer hours

401(k) with company match

Employee stock purchase plan

Medical/dental/vision/life insurance

Job summary

Gap Inc. seeks a hands-on senior engineering leader to bridge creative design, product creation, and the global supply chain. You will build and ship AI/ML-backed multi-agent workflows that turn structured & unstructured data, mood boards, tech packs, fabric specs, vendor collaboration, etc.

into live, sometimes autonomous, production decisions. As a senior, hands‑on engineering leader, you will direct the technical standards of the agentic systems that allow our business to operate at

Qualifications

• 12+ years in software/data/ML engineering with recent production AI experience.
• Experience shipping production AI/ML systems, ideally LLM-based agents or multi-agent orchestration.
• Hands-on coding and code review are part of your daily practice.

Responsibilities

• Own Technical Standards. Set and enforce engineering standards, contracts, and integration patterns for agentic solutions.
• Architect Agent-Ready Data. Define data strategies for ingesting, embedding, and exposing AI-ready data products.
• Co-Own the Agentic Reference Architecture. Design the agent harness, orchestration patterns, and tool contracts while staying model agnostic.
• Lead Complex Product-to-Market Agent Workflows. Build/deploy multi-agent systems across Design, Development, and Sourcing.
• Partner on Guardrails & Governance. Drive FinOps and collaborate with Trust, Security, and Governance teams.
• Elevate the Engineering Bar. Mentor engineers and participate in architecture reviews.

Skills

LLM-based agents

Multi-agent orchestration

Production AI systems

Cloud AI stack (GCP/Vertex)

Orchestration patterns

Hands-on coding

Technical standards leadership

Tools

LangGraph

Vertex AI

GCP

Job description

About Gap Inc.

At Gap Inc., we create culture as much as we create clothes. Our ambition is to become a high-performing house of iconic American brands that shape culture.

About Gap Inc.

At Gap Inc., we create culture as much as we create clothes. Our ambition is to become a high-performing house of iconic American brands that shape culture.

Our portfolio—Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta—each brings a distinct point of view to how we show up in the world and serve our customers.

Old Navy democratizes style with quality and value for all. Gap champions originality through essential pieces that celebrate individuality. Banana Republic is rooted in a spirit of discovery, creating modern pieces inspired by craftsmanship and travel. Athleta champions the Power of She through confidence, strength, and movement.

We’re driven by a shared purpose: to bridge gaps—between people, perspectives, and possibilities—to create a better world.

We’re building a team that performs at a high level—people who think boldly, take ownership, and turn ideas into impact. If you’re ready to learn fast and help shape what’s next, you’ll fit right in.

About The Role

In this role, you will bridge creative design, product creation, and the global supply chain for Gap Inc. This is not a research role — you will build and ship AI/ML-backed multi-agent workflows that turn structured & unstructured data, mood boards, tech packs, fabric specs, vendor collaboration, etc. into live, sometimes autonomous, production decisions. As a senior, hands‑on engineering leader, you will direct the technical standards of the agentic systems that allow our business to operate at AI‑native speed and scale. You will drive this transformation while owning the agentic application and AI‑ready data designs, and co‑owning the reference architecture and agent framework for our product‑to‑market journey.

What you'll do

• Own Technical Standards. Set and enforce engineering standards, contracts, and integration patterns — including interoperability protocols such as MCP/A2A — for agentic solutions across digital apparel design tools, PLM systems, vendor management, procurement, compliance, logistics, etc. Set the engineering definition‑of‑done, establishing system quality through evaluation gates (LLM‑as‑judge, golden datasets) rather than subjective opinion


• Architect Agent‑Ready Data. Shape the data strategy for how structured and unstructured design and sourcing assets are ingested, embedded, structured, and exposed as reliable, reusable AI‑ready data products — that provide features for sciences and ontology + context for multi‑agent loops


• Co‑Own the Agentic Reference Architecture. With peer AI/ML platform teams, design the agent harness (including trust frameworks), core orchestrator pattern, semantic/business‑context layers, and the tool contracts for the ML and data platforms while being model agnostic


• Lead Complex Product‑to‑Market Agent Workflows. Build and deploy multi‑agent systems that orchestrate tool‑use and multi‑step reasoning across Design, Development, and Sourcing — auto‑generating BOMs, negotiating RFPs, allocating materials, etc.


• Partner on Guardrails & Governance. Drive FinOps including cost‑aware routing across Vertex Model Garden based on latency, cost, and capability, backed by real data. Collaborate closely with Trust, Security, and Governance teams to ensure agents ship safe, grounded, entitlement‑aware, and gated against non‑deterministic failures


• Elevate the Engineering Bar. Mentor data and agent engineers across delivery pods and vendor‑augmented teams by building alongside them, not just reviewing PRs; represent agentic engineering in architecture reviews with senior technology leadership

Who you are

• 12+ years, hands‑on. In software/data/ML engineering, with recent experience building and shipping production AI/ML systems — ideally LLM‑based agents or multi‑agent orchestration, not just classical ML pipelines. You're still writing and reviewing code by choice, not solely reviewing architecture diagrams


• Staff/Principal/Architect track record. At a large, complex enterprise, you've set technical standards that other engineering teams were expected to follow, not just proposed them


• Production agent and cloud AI experience. Comfort with orchestration patterns (e.g., LangGraph, custom orchestrators, or equivalent), and hands‑on depth with at least one major cloud AI stack (GCP/Vertex preferred). You've built or owned LLM‑as‑judge pipelines, golden datasets, or comparable quality gates for a production AI system, not just discussed them conceptually


• Comfortable with conflict. Across engineering, sciences, platform, senior leadership, and security, you stand behind core design principles and rigor

Salary Range:

$209,700.00 - $272,600.00

Employee pay will vary based on factors such as qualifications, experience, skill level, competencies and work location. We will meet minimum wage or minimum of the pay range (whichever is higher) based on city, county and state requirements.

Benefits at Gap Inc.

• Merchandise discount for our brands: 50% off regular‑priced merchandise at Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic and Athleta, and 30% off at Outlet for all employees.


• One of the most competitive Paid Time Off plans in the industry.*


• Employees can take up to five “on the clock” hours each month to volunteer at a charity of their choice.*


• Extensive 401(k) plan with company matching for contributions up to four percent of an employee’s base pay.*


• Employee stock purchase plan.*


• Medical, dental, vision and life insurance.*


• See more of the benefits we offer.


• For eligible employees

Gap Inc. is an equal‑opportunity employer and is committed to providing a workplace free from harassment and discrimination. We are committed to recruiting, hiring, training and promoting qualified people of all backgrounds, and make all employment decisions without regard to any protected status. We have received numerous awards for our long‑held commitment to equality and will continue to foster a diverse and inclusive environment of belonging. In 2022, we were recognized by Forbes as one of the World's Best Employers and one of the Best Employers for Diversity.