(USA) Principal, Software Engineer-Experimentation Platform

Walmart • Bentonville, AR

4d • $110,000 - $286,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Help drive a culture of experimentation and data-driven decision-making at Walmart scale to continuously evolve and improve the customer experience. The Principal Software Engineer will serve as a technical lead on the Walmart Experimentation Platform team, designing and advancing the core infrastructure for Walmart’s self-serve experimentation platform. The team’s mission is to deliver a reliable, scalable experimentation experience across Walmart’s digital surfaces. This role shapes the platform’s multiyear technical strategy, drives alignment across organizations, and ensures the architecture supports evolving experimentation needs.

The role leads the technical direction of experimentation backend services and the design, development, and scaling of efficient, reliable systems and pipelines supporting teams globally. It partners with data scientists, product managers, engineering leaders, analytics, platform, and product teams to advance experimentation methods and adoption. The position also mentors engineers, leads cross-organizational initiatives, supports operational excellence, and guides the evaluation and adoption of emerging technologies.

The position is based at Walmart’s Bentonville, Arkansas location, with salary ranges also listed for Bentonville and Sunnyvale, California. Annual salary is $110,000–$220,000 in Bentonville or $143,000–$286,000 in Sunnyvale. Additional compensation may include annual or quarterly performance bonuses and, for certain positions, stock.

Requirements

• Proven technical leadership of a team of engineers.
• Experience designing, developing, testing, and maintaining large-scale systems.
• Expertise in one or more of Java, Scala, Lua, or Rust.
• Experience maintaining and deploying compute environments across local and cloud-based systems.
• Ability to proactively manage projects across multiple teams and troubleshoot issues.
• Proven ability to influence technical decisions across multiple teams or organizations.
• Strong strategic thinking and ability to connect engineering decisions to long-term business outcomes.
• Exceptional communication skills, including clear articulation of complex technical approaches to senior leadership and cross-functional audiences.
• Ability to identify emerging technologies and guide their adoption.
• Expertise in reliability engineering, observability, platform governance, and operational excellence for mission-critical systems.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or a related area and 5 years of experience in software engineering or a related area; or 7 years of experience in software engineering or a related area.

Nice To Haves

• Experience working with experimentation (A/B testing).
• Experience working with feature flags and risk-mitigated deployments.
• Experience building data solutions and AI/ML products.
• Strong contributions to open-source frameworks, standards, or libraries.
• Master’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or a related area and 3 years of experience in software engineering or a related area.
• Knowledge of creating inclusive digital experiences, implementing WCAG 2.2 AA standards, assistive technologies, and digital accessibility best practices.

Responsibilities

• Drive the technical direction of Walmart’s experimentation backend services, aligning long-term platform strategy with business needs across multiple organizations.
• Design, develop, and scale efficient, reliable systems and pipelines that support teams globally throughout Walmart.
• Provide deep technical mentorship and elevate engineering culture across a high-performing, agile engineering team.
• Partner with data scientists, product managers, and engineering leaders to advance experimentation methodologies and ensure platform adoption and success.
• Lead and participate in medium- to large-scale projects by reviewing requirements; translating them into technical solutions; designing solutions such as design documents, wireframes, and implementation plans; writing and developing code; testing; collaborating with cross-functional teams; troubleshooting open issues and bug fixes; and ensuring on-time delivery.
• Troubleshoot business and production issues by gathering information about the issue, impact, criticality, and root cause; engaging support teams; formulating an action plan; and carrying out designated actions.
• Support implementation of business solutions by partnering with stakeholders, identifying needs, managing processes, and adapting to evolving demands.
• Define the technical roadmap for experimentation platform services, aligning architecture decisions with multi-quarter business priorities.
• Lead the design of platform-level systems, author architecture proposals, conduct design reviews, and set technical direction across services.
• Drive cross-organizational initiatives with analytics, platform, and product teams to deliver unified experimentation capabilities.
• Ensure operational excellence for experimentation backend services by joining and driving incident mitigation efforts and root-cause analysis.
• Mentor Staff Engineers and Senior Engineers so they can independently lead large-scale initiatives.
• Lead evaluations and integration of emerging technologies, guiding proof-of-concepts and adoption strategies.
• Uphold and advance engineering excellence, including code quality, automation, observability, and security best practices.

Benefits

• Medical, vision, and dental coverage.
• 401(k).
• Stock purchase plan.
• Company-paid life insurance.
• Paid time off, including sick leave.
• Parental leave.
• Family care leave.
• Bereavement leave.
• Jury duty leave.
• Voting leave.
• Short-term and long-term disability.
• Company discounts.
• Military Leave Pay.
• Adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement.
• PTO and/or PPTO that may be used for vacation, sick leave, holidays, or other purposes.
• Live Better U paid education program for eligible full-time and part-time associates, covering tuition, books, and fees for eligible programs ranging from high school completion to bachelor’s degrees, English Language Learning, and short-form certificates.
• Performance-based bonus awards; additional compensation may include annual or quarterly performance bonuses and, for certain positions, stock.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal