Principal Software Engineer, Data and AI Platforms

Lululemon; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 206,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Health benefits

Paid time off

Equity offerings

Job summary

lululemon Athletica Inc. is seeking a Principal Software Engineer, Data and AI Platforms to own the design and delivery of the enterprise data platform and AI services powering analytics and insights across the retail ecosystem.

You will lead cross-functional teams, set standards for data governance, scale data pipelines, and mentor senior engineers while collaborating with VP-level stakeholders on strategy and roadmaps. This role may require beyond-hours support.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in CS/IS/IT or equivalent (Master’s preferred).
• 11–15 years of progressive software engineering with large-scale system design.
• Expert-level coding across multiple languages with production-grade results.
• Experience building and governing data APIs and platform services (gRPC/REST, SDKs, CLIs).
• Experience designing both batch and streaming architectures for analytics.
• Deep understanding of big data and distributed systems challenges.
• Experience with Kubernetes, Helm, Terraform; autoscaled clusters.
• Ownership of enterprise data lake architecture end-to-end.
• Ability to influence architecture decisions and mentor senior engineers.
• Strong communication with executives and stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Define vision and approach for enterprise data initiatives and deliver designs.
• Collaborate with architects on data platform architecture and system design.
• Ensure reliability, cost efficiency and platform adoption.
• Design foundational components for ingestion, transformation, orchestration, compute and consumption.
• Build ML/AI data and feature infrastructure for products and use cases.
• Lead cross-team architecture reviews and mentor senior engineers.
• Provide executive-level technical advisory on build vs. buy decisions.
• Drive engineering practices and workflows company-wide.
• Improve velocity through tooling and process improvements.

Skills

Software engineering

Distributed systems

Cross-functional leadership

Data platforms

Kubernetes

gRPC/REST APIs

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's preferred

Tools

Kubernetes

Helm

Terraform

CI/CD

Job description

Principal Software Engineer, Data and AI Platforms

Business Unit: Store Support Centre (SSC)

Time Type: Full-time

Description & Requirements

who we are

lululemon is an innovative performance apparel company for yoga, running, training, and other athletic pursuits. Setting the bar in technical fabrics and functional design, we create transformational products and experiences that support people in moving, growing, connecting, and being well. We owe our success to our innovative product, emphasis on stores, commitment to our people, and the incredible connections we make in every community we're in. As a company, we focus on creating positive change to build a healthier, thriving future. In particular, that includes creating an equitable, inclusive and growth-focused environment for our people.

about this team

The Enterprise Data & AI organization is a strategic and operational driver of growth for lululemon, owning and building the data and AI platforms and services that enable the enterprise to operate with intelligence at scale. The team leads the design and delivery of a trusted unified data foundation, AI-driven data analytics and insights, and AI solutions across lululemon’s vertically integrated retail ecosystem, while embedding strong data governance and responsible AI practices from the very beginning.

By applying AI to critical business challenges and creating new, transformative AI solutions, the team helps reshape how lululemon operates. Through deep partnership with product, technology, and business teams, Enterprise Data & AI accelerates product innovation, unlocks measurable value, elevates guest and educator experiences, and drives enterprise efficiency.

Our data and AI platform foundation is built on enterprise data lake architecture, standardized ingestion and integration frameworks, and canonical semantic models spanning product, customer, and supply chain domains.

The platform advances data insights and AI capabilities while maintaining rigorous data governance, observability, and platform reliability. The team delivers self-service data capabilities and shared platform services that enable consistent, trustworthy consumption across analytics, AI/ML, and operational use cases at enterprise scale.

core responsibilities

As a Princi pal Software Engineer, you will own the system design and implementation of lululemon’s enterprise data & AI platform and the systems that ensure delivery of data products and services that power high-impact business data-driven insights and AI use cases. You will ensure data pipelines and services that enable analytics, AI/ML, are reliable, efficient, and governed, and support operational consumption at scale.

You will design and build enterprise-grade data and AI infrastructure and reusable components thatenable multiple product teams and business domains to build, publish and consume data products. You will build a context and semantic layer infrastructure that enables insights and AI use-cases. You will enable and influence the engineering delivery of data insights and analytics across multiple use-cases.

You will establish the direction and system design for the enterprise data platform, set engineering standards and platform practices adopted across the domain, and serve as the definitive technical authority on the enterprise data platform. You will partner closely with product, business, and technology stakeholders including VP-level leadership, on technical strategy, platform roadmap, and cross-functional initiatives.

This role may require availability outside of standard business hours, including on-call support, based on business needs.

select responsibilities include:

• Define vision and approach for enterprise data initiatives and effectively and efficiently deliver the technology solution design
• Collaborate closely with architects on enterprise data platform technical architecture and system design, and provide deep technical expertise on implementation approaches, feasibility assessment, and operational implications
• Be accountable for their reliability, cost efficiency and adoption
• Design and build foundational platform components that other engineering teams build on top of, across areas like ingestion, transformation, orchestration, compute and consumption
• Build platform components for ML/AI applications such as point-in-time correct training data, online and offline feature parity or backfilling features at scale
• Architect robust multi-tenant platform standards by establishing clear cross-layer contracts, tenant isolation, and SLOs to enable autonomous producers and consumers, while driving compute and storage efficiency across workloads
• Lead cross team technical initiatives and architecture reviews, influence platform strategy with senior stakeholders and act as a technical mentor and multiplier for Senior engineers
• Write high-quality production code to solve the complex technical challenges when hands-on expertise is required
• Challenge and improve existing architecture decisions by identifying limitations in current systems and proposing technical solutions based on system design expertise
• Provide executive-level technical advisory on complex implementation challenges and technology recommendations focused on build vs. buy decisions, technology selection, and implementation risk assessment
• Drive engineering practices and technical workflows adopted company-wide, shaping how the organization builds and operates technology and increasing engineering throughput
• Drive engineering velocity and throughput improvements across multiple teams through process optimization, tooling enhancements, and removal of systemic blockers

qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science , Information Systems, Information Technology, or equivalent experience; Master’s preferred
• 11-15 years of progressive software engineering experience with demonstrated expertise in large-scale system design, technical architecture, and cross-functional leadership related to data systems and platforms or equivalent technology domains
• Expert-level coding ability with a track record of writing production code to solve the most critical and complex technical challenges across multiple languages and frameworks
• Experience building and governing shared data APIs and platform services ( gRPC /REST APIs, SDKs, CLIs, and simple UIs) enabling consistent, scalable downstream consumption across analytics, AI/ML, and operational use cases
• Experience designing both batch and streaming architectures and clear judgement on when each is the right answer
• Deep understanding of big data and distributed systems challenges including partitioning, shuffle behaviour, skew, idempotency and backfills
• Expertise in configuration management with a framework such as Kubernetes, Helm, Terraform etc.
• Expertise in managing distributed and autoscaled applications in Kubernetes clustersProven experience owning enterprise data lake architecture end-to-end, including ingestion frameworks, pipeline orchestration, DataOps disciplines (CI/CD, SLAs, observability), platform reliability, and security, privacy, and access control in partnership with risk and compliance teams
• Deep experience analyzing complex system interactions to identify optimal solution approaches; proven ability to make technical trade-off decisions balancing immediate delivery needs with long-term scalability and organizational impact
• Experience defining implementation plans and execution approaches for complex, cross-organizational technology programs; familiarity collaborating with architects to translate architectural designs into actionable engineering roadmaps
• Recognized depth in engineering implementations, combined with breadth to assess system-wide implications; proven ability to make rapid, high-confidence judgements on when to engage directly with engineers versus delegating
• Demonstrated ability to influence product strategy and investment decisions through technical insights on feasibility, risk, and business impact
• Experience defining enterprise semantic layers and canonical models — including taxonomies, ontologies, and knowledge graphs — used across multiple product teams and business domains
• Exposure to AI-driven systems including optimization, predictions, and Agents; experience working with knowledge representation for LLM-powered applications
• Experience building knowledge bases or data platforms in retail or similarly complex consumer domains

must haves

• Acknowledge the presence of choice in every moment and take personal responsibility for your life.
• Possess an entrepreneurial spirit and continuously innovate to achieve great results.
• Communicate with honesty and kindness and create the space for others to do the same.
• Lead with courage, knowing the possibility of greatness is bigger than the fear of failure.
• Foster connection by putting people first and building trusting relationships.
• Integrate fun and joy as a way of being and working, aka doesn’t take yourself too seriously.

additional notes

Please note: Applicants must be authorized to work for ANY employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment visa at this time for this role.

compensation and benefits package

lululemon’s compensation offerings are grounded in a pay-for-performance philosophy that recognizes exceptional individual and teamperformance. Thetypical hiring range for this position is from $205,600 - $269,900annually; the base pay offered is based on market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and internal equity. As part of our total rewards offering, permanent employees in this position may be eligible for our competitive annual bonus program and equity offerings, subject to program eligibility requirements.

At lululemon, investing in our people is a top priority. We believe that when life works, work works. We strive to be the place where inclusive leaders come to develop and enable all to be well. Recognizing our teams for their performance and dedication, other components of our total rewards offerings include support of career development, wellbeing, and personal growth:

• Extended health and dental benefits, and mental health plans
• Paid time off
• Savings and retirement plan matching
• Parenthood top-up
• Extensive catalog of development course offerings
• People networks, mentorship programs, and leadership series (to name a few)

Note: The incentive programs, benefits, and perks have certain eligibility requirements. The Company reserves the right to alter these incentive programs, benefits, and perks in whole or in part at any time without advance notice.

workplace arrangement

Hybrid :In-person collaboration and connection is important to our culture. Work is performed onsite, minimum 4 days per week.

Only those applicants under consideration will be contacted. Please accept our utmost appreciation for your interest. Lululemon is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. Employment decisions are based on merit and business needs, and not on race, color, creed, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, military service, pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions or any other classification protected by federal, state or provincial and local laws and ordinances. Reasonable accommodation is available for qualified individuals with disabilities, upon request. This Equal Employment Opportunity policy applies to all practices relating to recruitment and hiring, compensation, benefits, discipline, transfer, termination and all other terms and conditions of employment. While management is primarily responsible for seeing that Lululemon equal employment opportunity policies are implemented, you share in the responsibility for assuring that, by your personal actions, the policies are effective.

lululemon is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities. If you would like someone from our team to contact you for individualized support, email us at [e-mail] . In your email, please include the position title, the location of the position and the nature of your request.

The use of AI tools, including but not limited to ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, DeepSeek, or any other AI-assisted software, is strictly prohibited during the interview process. This includes, AI-generated responses, content creation, or any form of automated assistance in live interviews, case studies, technical assessments, and written submissions.

At lululemon, we are committed to privacy, integrity, transparency, and ethical hiring practices. Our commitment to responsible AI ensures that proprietary information is protected and that all hiring decisions are based on an individual’s own skills, judgment, and expertise without AI assistance. Any use of AI during the interview process will result in immediate disqualification. lululemon reserves the right to use AI detection tools to verify the authenticity of candidate responses.