Staff Software Engineer - Digital Engineering

Lululemon Athletica Inc.; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 178,000 - 233,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Extended health benefits

Dental benefits

Paid time off

Retirement plan matching

Job summary

lululemon Athletica Inc. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to shape the technical direction of our digital commerce experiences. You will lead cross‑functional efforts across catalog, publishing, search, CMS, and merchandising to build scalable online solutions.

You will work in a hybrid environment with in-person collaboration at minimum 4 days per week and help define engineering standards, patterns, and production readiness across teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field, or equivalent experience; Master's degree preferred.
• 9–12+ years of software engineering experience with leadership across multiple teams or large-scale systems.
• Deep experience designing distributed, highly scalable systems and enterprise APIs.
• Strong experience in digital commerce/e-commerce with expertise in product catalog/product information, publishing, search, recommendations, CMS, or related platforms.

Responsibilities

• Design scalable enterprise software solutions, services, APIs, and frameworks across multiple teams.
• Provide technical leadership across areas including product catalog, product information, search, recommendations, CMS, and digital merchandising.
• Drive multi-team technical initiatives with minimal supervision and clear trade-offs.
• Define architectural patterns enabling reliable integration across catalog, publishing, search, CMS, and commerce platforms.
• Mentor engineers and lead technical design reviews across teams.

Skills

Distributed systems

APIs

Cloud infrastructure

CI/CD

Mentoring engineers

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related

Job description

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

Our team builds and evolves the technology that powers lululemon's digital commerce experiences, helping guests discover products, find relevant content, and move seamlessly from inspiration to purchase. We work across a highly interconnected ecosystem that includes product catalog and product publishing, search and recommendations, content publishing and CMS, digital merchandising, APIs, and other foundational commerce capabilities.

We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer who can operate across this ecosystem and help shape the technical direction of our digital experiences. The ideal candidate brings deep technical expertise in one or more areas such as e-commerce catalog, product information and publishing, search and recommendations, content management/CMS, or related digital commerce platforms, combined with the ability to understand and influence systems beyond their immediate domain.

This role will work across multiple engineering teams and partner closely with Product, Architecture, SRE, Data, Security, and other technology organizations to solve complex technical problems, establish scalable engineering patterns, and improve the reliability, performance, and agility of our digital commerce platform.

core responsibilities

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will serve as a technical multiplier across multiple engineering teams, designing and delivering enterprise software solutions and technical frameworks that scale across lululemon's digital ecosystem. You will provide hands‑on technical leadership for complex, cross‑functional initiatives while helping establish engineering standards, architectural patterns, and operational practices adopted across teams.

Select responsibilities include:

• Design and implement scalable enterprise software solutions, services, APIs, and technical frameworks spanning multiple teams and digital commerce domains.
• Provide technical leadership across one or more areas including product catalog, product information/product publishing, search, recommendations, content publishing, CMS, digital merchandising, or related e-commerce capabilities.
• Drive complex, multi‑team technical initiatives with minimal supervision, making key technical decisions independently while navigating ambiguity, dependencies, and competing priorities.
• Define and promote architectural patterns that enable reliable integration across catalog, product publishing, search, recommendation, CMS, commerce, and other digital platforms.
• Write exemplary production code in critical areas when deep technical expertise or hands‑on engineering leadership is required.
• Lead technical discovery and design for complex business problems, translating ambiguous requirements into simple, scalable, and maintainable technical solutions.
• Partner with Principal Engineers, Enterprise Architects, Product Managers, and other technical leaders to evaluate architectural options, implementation approaches, scalability, reliability, security, and operational implications.
• Lead technical design reviews across multiple engineering teams, providing expert guidance on architecture, implementation, scalability, maintainability, and long‑term technical health.
• Establish engineering standards and reusable patterns across teams, including API design, integration patterns, testing strategies, observability, deployment practices, and operational readiness.
• Design systems capable of supporting high‑volume digital commerce traffic, peak‑season demand, and rapid changes in product and content availability.
• Identify and address systemic performance, reliability, scalability, and resiliency challenges across interconnected commerce systems.
• Champion engineering practices that improve system observability and operational excellence, including meaningful SLIs/SLOs, monitoring, alerting, incident readiness, and production diagnostics.
• Mentor engineers at all levels and actively develop emerging technical leaders through technical guidance, design reviews, and knowledge sharing.
• Influence technical strategy beyond a single team or product area and help establish a consistent engineering culture across the organization.

qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field, or equivalent experience; Master's degree preferred.
• 9-12+ years of software engineering experience, including significant experience providing technical leadership across multiple teams or large‑scale systems.
• Deep experience designing and implementing distributed, highly scalable systems and enterprise APIs using modern software engineering practices.
• Strong experience in digital commerce/e-commerce, with deep expertise in one or more of the following areas:
  • Product catalog and product information management
  • Product publishing and product lifecycle systems
  • Search and discovery
  • Recommendations and personalization
  • Content publishing and Content Management Systems (CMS)
  • Digital merchandising or related commerce platforms
• Experience designing integrations and data flows between commerce platforms such as catalog, product publishing, search, recommendations, CMS/content platforms, inventory, pricing, or other downstream digital experiences.
• Proven ability to understand complex, interconnected systems and identify architectural improvements that span multiple products, services, and engineering teams.
• Experience designing APIs, event‑driven architectures, microservices, distributed systems, and highly available cloud‑based applications.
• Experience building systems that support high‑volume traffic, seasonal/peak demand, and business‑critical digital customer experiences.
• Proven ability to decompose highly ambiguous technical challenges into effective, non‑over‑engineered solutions and clearly articulate technical trade‑offs.
• Strong understanding of modern software development practices, automated testing, CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, monitoring, and production operations.
• Demonstrated ability to establish and articulate technical strategy across an organization in alignment with business objectives and strategic initiatives.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence technical decisions across engineering, product, architecture, and business stakeholders.
• Experience mentoring engineers and developing technical talent, including the ability to influence without direct authority.

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

Authorization to work in the United States is required for this role.

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 positionis from $177,500 - 233,000 annually ; 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, 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, or 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.