(USA) Senior Manager, Data Engineering

Walmart•Sunnyvale, CA

About The Position

Position Summary... What you'll do... The Mission At Sam’s Club, we are no longer just building dashboards or static pipelines; we are building the "brain" of the retail experience. As the Senior Engineering Manager for Agentic Data, you will be at the forefront of the AI revolution. Your mission is to evolve our massive data ecosystem into a Semantic & Contextual Layer—the foundational intelligence that allows AI Agents to reason, plan, and act autonomously for millions of members.You aren't just managing a team; you are architecting the bridge between raw data and autonomous action. You will lead the transition from traditional data structures to agent-ready environments, where data is not just stored, but understood in real-time. ________________________________________ What You’ll Do Architect the Semantic Future: Define the technical vision for a unified semantic layer that transforms structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data into context-aware representations (Embeddings, Knowledge Graphs, and Metadata) consumable by LLMs and multi-agent workflows. Real-Time Agentic Intelligence: Own the streaming architecture that feeds our agents. You will leverage Kafka to build low-latency event-driven pipelines, ensuring agents have access to "up-to-the-second" member context and environmental state. Champion Data Fundamentals: Ensure the bedrock of our AI strategy is built on elite Data Engineering principles. You will oversee the design of scalable schemas, partitioning strategies, and high-performance indexing that make petabyte-scale data accessible to reasoning models. Build Agent-Ready Ecosystems: Lead the design of "Agentic Data" pipelines—ensuring that data provided to AI agents is high-fidelity, optimized for retrieval, and enriched with the necessary business logic to prevent hallucinations. Strategic Leadership: Manage and mentor a high-performing team of engineers. You will bridge the gap between AI/ML Research, Product, and Platform Engineering to align data roadmaps with long-term autonomous decision-making goals. Innovate Retrieval Systems: Own the strategy for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) at scale, optimizing how our agents discover and interact with Sam's Club’s vast proprietary knowledge base across both batch and streaming sources. Establish Operational Excellence: Define standards for "Agentic Observability"—implementing telemetry, lineage, and auditability patterns specifically for autonomous and regulated AI workflows. ________________________________________ What You’ll Bring Experience: 7–10+ years in Data Engineering, building and operating large-scale, distributed, fault-tolerant data platforms, with at least 3+ years in a leadership role. Data Engineering Mastery: Deep-rooted expertise in Data Fundamentals. You must be an expert in data modeling (Star/Snowflake, Data Vault), storage formats (Parquet, Avro), and distributed computing concepts (sharding, replication, and CAP theorem). Real-Time Expertise: Deep experience with Kafka and event-driven architectures. You understand how to manage state, schema evolution, and consistency in streaming environments (Kafka Streams, Flink, or Spark Streaming). Semantic & AI Mastery: Deep familiarity with the modern AI stack—specifically Vector Databases (Pinecone, Milvus), Knowledge Graphs, and framework orchestration (LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI). Cloud Scale Mastery: Proven track record in GCP or Azure, utilizing BigQuery, Dataflow, and Pub/Sub to handle petabyte-scale workloads. Data Modeling for LLMs: Expert-level understanding of how schema choices, latency, and context window management impact AI reasoning and retrieval quality. Engineering Rigor: Fluency in Python, Java, or Scala, with a deep engineering mindset around testability, maintainability, and high-performance system design.

Requirements

7–10+ years in Data Engineering, building and operating large-scale, distributed, fault-tolerant data platforms, with at least 3+ years in a leadership role.
Deep-rooted expertise in Data Fundamentals. You must be an expert in data modeling (Star/Snowflake, Data Vault), storage formats (Parquet, Avro), and distributed computing concepts (sharding, replication, and CAP theorem).
Deep experience with Kafka and event-driven architectures. You understand how to manage state, schema evolution, and consistency in streaming environments (Kafka Streams, Flink, or Spark Streaming).
Deep familiarity with the modern AI stack—specifically Vector Databases (Pinecone, Milvus), Knowledge Graphs, and framework orchestration (LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI).
Proven track record in GCP or Azure, utilizing BigQuery, Dataflow, and Pub/Sub to handle petabyte-scale workloads.
Expert-level understanding of how schema choices, latency, and context window management impact AI reasoning and retrieval quality.
Fluency in Python, Java, or Scala, with a deep engineering mindset around testability, maintainability, and high-performance system design.

Nice To Haves

Data engineering, database engineering, business intelligence, or business analytics, ETL tools and working with large data sets in the cloud
Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field and 5 years' experience in software engineering or related field
We value candidates with a background in creating inclusive digital experiences, demonstrating knowledge in implementing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standards, assistive technologies, and integrating digital accessibility seamlessly.
The ideal candidate would have knowledge of accessibility best practices and join us as we continue to create accessible products and services following Walmart’s accessibility standards and guidelines for supporting an inclusive culture.

Responsibilities

Architect the Semantic Future: Define the technical vision for a unified semantic layer that transforms structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data into context-aware representations (Embeddings, Knowledge Graphs, and Metadata) consumable by LLMs and multi-agent workflows.
Real-Time Agentic Intelligence: Own the streaming architecture that feeds our agents. You will leverage Kafka to build low-latency event-driven pipelines, ensuring agents have access to "up-to-the-second" member context and environmental state.
Champion Data Fundamentals: Ensure the bedrock of our AI strategy is built on elite Data Engineering principles. You will oversee the design of scalable schemas, partitioning strategies, and high-performance indexing that make petabyte-scale data accessible to reasoning models.
Build Agent-Ready Ecosystems: Lead the design of "Agentic Data" pipelines—ensuring that data provided to AI agents is high-fidelity, optimized for retrieval, and enriched with the necessary business logic to prevent hallucinations.
Strategic Leadership: Manage and mentor a high-performing team of engineers. You will bridge the gap between AI/ML Research, Product, and Platform Engineering to align data roadmaps with long-term autonomous decision-making goals.
Innovate Retrieval Systems: Own the strategy for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) at scale, optimizing how our agents discover and interact with Sam's Club’s vast proprietary knowledge base across both batch and streaming sources.
Establish Operational Excellence: Define standards for "Agentic Observability"—implementing telemetry, lineage, and auditability patterns specifically for autonomous and regulated AI workflows.

Benefits

Beyond competitive pay, you can receive incentive awards for your performance.
Other great perks include 401(k) match, stock purchase plan, paid maternity and parental leave, PTO, multiple health plans, and much more.
Health benefits include medical, vision and dental coverage.
Financial benefits include 401(k), stock purchase and company-paid life insurance.
Paid time off benefits include PTO (including sick leave), parental leave, family care leave, bereavement, jury duty, and voting.
Other benefits include short-term and long-term disability, company discounts, Military Leave Pay, adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, and more.
You will also receive PTO and/or PPTO that can be used for vacation, sick leave, holidays, or other purposes.
Live Better U is a Walmart-paid education benefit program for full-time and part-time associates in Walmart and Sam's Club facilities.
Programs range from high school completion to bachelor's degrees, including English Language Learning and short-form certificates.
Tuition, books, and fees are completely paid for by Walmart.