Senior Director, Software Engineering

Walmart · Retail · Bentonville, AR +2

Senior Director of Engineering leading Code Puppy, a flagship AI builder platform within Walmart's AI & Data organization. The role focuses on defining and executing the engineering and platform strategy to enable associates to build AI-powered solutions quickly, safely, and cost-effectively at enterprise scale, with an emphasis on responsible AI and operational excellence.

What you'd actually do

  1. Define and execute the long-term vision and roadmap for Code Puppy as a foundational AI builder platform.
  2. Establish architectural standards for distributed systems, AI pipelines, agent-based workflows, and developer tooling.
  3. Embed guardrails, governance, and human-in-the-loop patterns into platform design.
  4. Define reliability targets, SLOs, and operational KPIs for Code Puppy as a mission-critical internal platform.
  5. Build and develop a high-performing team across engineering, data science, and program management.

Skills

Required

  • 12+ years of progressive engineering leadership experience, including leading platform or AI-enabled product organizations.
  • Proven experience leading senior individual contributors (Principal and Distinguished-level engineers).
  • Deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud-native architecture, and AI/ML productionization.
  • Experience building internal platforms or developer ecosystems at enterprise scale.
  • Demonstrated success embedding responsible AI and governance frameworks.
  • Strong executive presence with the ability to influence at VP and SVP levels.

Nice to have

  • Passion for building diverse teams and developing next-generation technology leaders.

What the JD emphasized

  • enterprise-grade AI builder platform
  • AI/ML productization
  • Responsible AI enablement
  • agent-based workflows
  • AI-assisted engineering workflows
  • enterprise scale
  • responsible AI and governance frameworks

Other signals

  • AI builder platform
  • enterprise-grade AI builder platform
  • AI-first strategy
  • AI-driven applications
  • AI/ML productization
  • Responsible AI enablement
  • agent-based workflows
  • agent builders
  • AI-assisted engineering workflows
  • AI-first transformation