Sr. Software Engineer II - AI

iHerb Inc.; California, Northern (MO, KY); Hybrid; USD 187,000 - 235,000; Full time

Job summary

iHerb Inc. is seeking a Sr. Software Engineer II - AI to lead GenAI-powered product experiences and the AI platform that powers them. You will own RAG pipelines, personalization, and agentic workflows, building production-grade AI capabilities across marketing, BI, and internal surfaces.

You will collaborate with the Personalization team, document decisions, and ensure observability, reliability, and cost efficiency in a fast-paced, global e-commerce environment.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience shipping production AI features using AI-assisted development tools.
• End-to-end feature ownership from spec through deployment, observability and on-call.
• Strong knowledge of software design, testing, CI/CD, and code reviews.
• Proficiency in Python and building production LLM apps.
• Experience with RAG, retrieval, and evaluation frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate production AI features: RAG pipelines, LLM-driven recommendations, conversational agents, or agentic workflow automation.
• Build the shared AI platform layer: retrieval infrastructure, eval frameworks, model monitoring, guardrails, and observability.
• Write LLM applications and integrations with marketing platforms, BI tools, or customer-facing surfaces.
• Evaluate model and feature quality using structured eval frameworks; iterate on prompts and retrieval strategies.
• Use AI-driven SDLC tooling daily for AI and non-AI code.
• Coordinate with Personalization team to align GenAI features with ML signals.
• Document AI design decisions, eval results, and operational lessons.
• Own observability of AI systems, latency, cost, quality drift, and on-call responses.

Skills

AI SDLC

Full-stack

Production ownership

Code quality

Python

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Prompt engineering

Vector databases

Observability

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS

Tools

Claude Code

GitHub Copilot

Cursor

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Job description

Remote, California, United States of America

R107002 Posted 10/07/2026

For A Better You

At iHerb, we believe that living a healthy and balanced life should be easy and accessible to everyone. As a team member, we’ll empower you to live this promise each day as you make a truly global impact in your career. We constantly strive for innovation, while transforming and improving the online shopping experience for our customers. We believe that individually we are incredible, but when we come together, our growth is infinite. In an industry that is constantly evolving, we are on a mission to make an impact on the global market, and the individual and collaborative efforts of our people are paramount to helping us succeed. Whether you work in one of our logistics centers, technology hubs, corporate offices or even from home, your role at iHerb will take you beyond what’s expected, turning challenge into change. If you're ready for it, we want you to join our team.

Job Summary

The Sr. Software Engineer II - AI will lead the build of GenAI-powered product experiences and the shared AI platform infrastructure that powers them. This includes RAG pipelines over the iHerb catalog and customer reviews, LLM-driven personalization, a conversational Wellness Agent, agentic workflow systems, and the evals and MLOps layer that makes AI features production-grade and repeatable. Specializations within this track include: RAG and personalization, agent framework and tool use, evals and guardrails, and LLM application development for internal business functions such as marketing automation and BI agents.

Job Expectations

• Design, build, and operate production AI features: RAG pipelines, LLM-driven recommendations, conversational agents, or agentic workflow automation.
• Build the shared AI platform layer: retrieval infrastructure, eval frameworks, model monitoring, guardrails, and observability.
• Write LLM applications and integrations with marketing platforms, BI tools, or customer-facing product surfaces.
• Evaluate model and feature quality using structured eval frameworks; iterate on prompts, retrieval strategies, and model selection using data.
• Use AI-driven SDLC tooling such as Claude Code as a daily practice for both AI and non-AI code.
• Coordinate with the Personalization team to align GenAI product features with existing ML personalization signals.
• Document AI system design decisions, evaluation results, and operational lessons in the shared knowledge base.
• Own the observability of AI systems you build: latency, cost, quality drift, and error rates; participate in on-call rotation and respond to production incidents.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Required

• AI-driven SDLC : hands-on experience shipping production code with AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or Cursor. The bar is not awareness; it is daily use in delivering real software.
• Full-stack awareness: comfortable contributing across layers of the stack when needed; purely single-layer specialists are not the target profile.
• Production ownership: experience owning features end-to-end from spec through deployment, observability, and on-call. Engineers here own what they ship; there is no separate ops handoff.
• Code quality fundamentals: strong grasp of software design principles, automated testing, code review, and CI/CD.
• Fully autonomous; drives technical decisions within the team; mentors junior engineers.
• Python proficiency; comfortable building and operating production LLM applications.
• Hands-on experience with at least one specialization: RAG and retrieval systems, LLM evaluation, agentic frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar), or LLM-based workflow automation.
• Understanding of prompt engineering, context window management, and LLM output quality tradeoffs.
• Familiarity with vector databases, embedding models, or semantic search.
• High degree of accuracy and attention to detail
• Excellent organization skills and ability to multi-task

Preferred

• Exposure to MLOps tooling or model deployment pipelines.
• Contributions to internal developer tooling, golden path standards, or SDLC process improvements.
• Experience with e-commerce platforms, product catalogs, or high-traffic consumer applications.
• Exposure to MLOps tooling or model deployment pipelines.
• Experience working in globally distributed teams.
• Track record of documenting architectural decisions, writing RFCs, or contributing to engineering wikis.

Equipment Knowledge

• Experience with Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• Experience with Google Business Suite (Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Forms) preferred

Experience Requirements

Generally requires a minimum of 10+ years of software engineering experience.

Education Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related field preferred, or a combination of education and equivalent work experience.

Judgment/Reasoning Ability

Able to identify, troubleshoot and resolve problems quickly using sound judgment, poise and diplomacy. Ability to use judgment and reasoning skills, and determine when to escal... issues, as required, in a timely manner.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a Team Member to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. While performing the duties of this job, the Team Member is regularly required to talk and hear. The Team Member is frequently required to sit, walk, climb stairs, use hands and fingers, bend, stoop and reach with hands and arms. Reaching above shoulder heights, below the waist or lifting as required to file documents or store materials throughout the work day. The Team Member may occasionally lift or move office products and supplies up to 25 pounds. Proper lifting techniques required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Work Environment

The noise in the work environment is usually moderate. Other factors are:

• Hectic, fast-paced with multi-level distractions
• Professional, yet casual work environment
• Office / Warehouse environment
• Ability to work extended hours as required

Compensation

The expected salary range for this role is $187,000.00 - $235,000.00 USD. The actual base pay offered will be determined by factors such as the candidate's relevant experience, education, geographic location, and internal equity.

iHerb is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status. iHerb provides equal employment opportunities to all applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment.