Principal Engineer, Applied AI & Build Standards

Best Buy; Minneapolis (MN); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Best Buy is seeking a Principal Engineer for Applied AI & Build Standards in Richfield, MN. You will set technical direction, shape platform architecture and define build standards used by thousands of engineers and technologists.

This hands-on leadership role focuses on architecting scalable AI rails and secure, cost-aware agent tooling. You will work hybrid, on-site Monday through Thursday with Friday remote, mentor teams, and drive governance, security, and measurable business impact for

Qualifications

• 7+ years of hands-on software engineering experience with a Bachelor's degree or equivalent.
• Experience setting technical direction for a shared platform used by many engineering teams.
• Recent hands-on experience building LLM-based agent systems beyond a prototype, including tool calling, evaluation and guardrails.
• Experience securing software that acts on a user's behalf, including authentication, authorization, least-privilege access and audit logging.
• Experience leading technical decisions across teams without direct authority, and explaining trade-offs in writing to senior leaders.
• Daily, hands-on use of AI coding agents in design, build and code reviews.

Responsibilities

• Own the reference architecture and roadmap for the platform: agent harness, MCP gateway, durable execution, model routing and cost attribution.
• Define the trust model for AI agents: risk tiers, approval gates for high-risk actions, kill switches and audit logs tied to a person.
• Set the bar for engineering excellence: what done means at each stage, eval-gated releases and approval of new models.
• Give senior leaders a risk-calibrated view of agent safety, matching each control to the cost of a mistake.
• Coach engineers across teams through design reviews, RFCs and office hours, and bring the technical view to AI governance.
• Use of Agentic AI as core development/coding tool.
• Daily, hands-on use of AI coding agents in how you design, build and review code

Skills

Hands-on software engineering

LLM agents

Security & auth

Design reviews

RFCs

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

MCP experience

API gateway

Job description

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Principal Engineer, Applied AI & Build Standards

Full time

Regular

Job Description

As the Principal Engineer on Best Buy's Applied AI & Build Standards team, you will set our technical direction. You'll decide how the platform is built and how agents earn trust, with one practical aim: give our teams time back for work that matters to millions of customers and measure the return in dollars. This is a hands-on individual contributor role with no direct reports. You'll lead through technical authority and code. Our team, known internally as AI Rails, builds the shared platform and sets the build standards that let thousands of Best Buy engineers and technologists use AI agents with the right access, security and cost controls.
This role is hybrid, which means you will be required to work on site Monday through Thursday at the Best Buy corporate office in Richfield, Minnesota. You can work virtually from home or another non-Best Buy location on Friday. The recruiter or hiring manager will provide more details during the hiring process.
This role is eligible for immigration sponsorship.
What you'll do

• Own the reference architecture and roadmap for the platform: agent harness, MCP gateway, durable execution, model routing and cost attribution
• Recommend build-versus-buy choices for core components and see each one through evaluation, decision and rollout
• Define the trust model for AI agents: risk tiers, approval gates for high-risk actions, kill switches and audit logs tied to a person
• Set the bar for engineering excellence: what "done" means at each stage, eval-gated releases and approval of new models
• Give senior leaders a risk-calibrated view of agent safety, matching each control to the cost of a mistake
• Coach engineers across teams through design reviews, RFCs and office hours, and bring the technical view to AI governance
• Use of Agentic AI as core development/coding tool
• 7 or more years of hands-on software engineering experience with a Bachelor's degree OR equivalent relevant professional experience
• Experience setting technical direction for a shared platform many engineering teams depend on, such as an API gateway or developer platform
• Recent hands-on experience (last two years) building LLM-based agent systems beyond a prototype, including tool calling, evaluation and guardrails
• Experience securing software that acts on a user's behalf, including authentication, authorization, least-privilege access and audit logging
• Experience leading technical decisions across teams without direct authority, and explaining trade-offs in writing to senior leaders
• Daily, hands-on use of AI coding agents in how you design, build and review code

Preferred qualifications

• 9+ years of relevant professional experience
• Bachelor's degree in IT, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field
• Taking an internal platform from pilot to production at scale, with results in numbers (usage, cost per task)
• Runtime controls for AI agents in production: policy gateways, human approval for high-risk actions, kill switches, immutable audit logs
• Taking AI capabilities through security, risk and compliance review in a large or regulated enterprise
• Hands-on MCP experience (servers, gateways, tool discovery) and context engineering: accurate, current, permission-aware company data for agents

What's in it for you

We're committed to helping our people thrive at work and at home. Best Buy offers a range of benefits to support your overall well-being and provide support as you need it, especially at key moments in your life.

Our benefits include:

Competitive pay

Great employee discount

Financial savings and retirement resources

Support for your physical and mental well-being

Best Buy provides different types of leaves of absence (LOA) and potential pay sources to employees based on eligibility. The length of your LOA depends on your situation, where you live, your full-time or part-time employment status, and federal and state regulations. Intermittent or reduced-schedule leave is also available for certain medical or family care leaves. Paid time off (vacation or PTO) is offered to full-time and part-time employees based on work location, employment status, salary or hourly status (exempt/non-exempt), and years of continued or bridged service.

Certain roles, where market norms demand it, are eligible for various forms of incentive pay to drive performance and offer recognition for achieving financial and strategic results. For more information about our incentive pay plans, including eligibility, please refer to our Incentive Programs Summary.

For more information about benefits, LOA and paid time off, please refer to our Benefits Guide.

About us

As part of the Best Buy team, you'll help us fulfill our purpose to enrich lives through technology. We bring that to life every day by humanizing and personalizing tech solutions for every stage of life - in our stores, online and in customers' homes.

Our culture is built on deeply supporting and valuing our amazing employees who make it all possible. We're committed to being a great place to work, where you can unlock unique career possibilities. Above all, we aim to provide a place where you can bring your full, authentic self to work now and into the future. Tomorrow works here.

Best Buy is an equal opportunity employer.

Application deadline: Minimum of 5 days from the posting date. You can find that date above the job title at the top of the page.

1052732BR

Brand

Best Buy

Job Category

DAT Group

Job Level

138,000.00

247,000.00

Store Number or Department

900010 Corporate 1 MN

Address Line 1

City

State

Search Categories

Corporate, Digital and Technology

55423-8500

Best Buy offers a range of benefits to support your overall well-being, as outlined in the Benefits Guide . Eligibility may vary.