Software Engineer III– AI Systems

Walmart•Bentonville, AR

1d•$90,000 - $234,000

About The Position

Walmart Global Tech is seeking a Software Engineer to design and build AI-first systems focused on agentic AI, high-performance data and compute frameworks, and scalable, production-grade services. The role works across model-driven features and platform layers, integrating LLMs and agents, orchestrating pipelines with Ray, accelerating data science workloads with RAPIDS, and delivering robust APIs and services for large-scale AI applications. The position calls for strong software engineering fundamentals and practical ML systems experience, with an emphasis on performance, reliability, and developer experience. The engineer will build agentic workflows and AI services; develop GPU-accelerated, distributed data pipelines; design and maintain services for training, inference, vector indexing, and real-time decisioning; and integrate AI services with MLOps tooling and security controls. The role partners with product, platform, and data science and machine learning engineering teams, documents systems, participates in design reviews, and mentors peers. The position is based at one of the listed Walmart locations: Bentonville, Arkansas; Sunnyvale, California; or Bellevue, Washington. Walmart describes its culture as people-led and tech-empowered, and says its campus-based work supports collaboration, alignment, and associate development. The company offers compensation, performance-based awards, and benefits, subject to eligibility and plan terms.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or a related area and 2 years of experience in software engineering or a related area; alternatively, 4 years of experience in software engineering or a related area.
The posting’s role-specific minimum qualifications also state a bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, engineering, or equivalent industry experience, and 4 or more years building production backend or platform services, preferably in AI/ML contexts.
Proficiency in Python and at least one of Go, Java, or C++.
Experience with a distributed framework such as Ray, Spark, or Dask.
Experience with RAPIDS (cuDF, cuML, or cuGraph) and GPU-aware programming concepts, including streams and memory.
Experience with Python service frameworks such as FastAPI or Flask, Kubernetes, and Docker/containerization.
Strong foundations in data structures and algorithms, concurrency, networking, and systems design.
Pragmatic problem-solving approach with a focus on measurable latency, throughput, and reliability outcomes.
Excellent communication skills to translate between research goals and production constraints.
Ability to drive clarity in ambiguous problem spaces, mentor others, and improve engineering standards.

Nice To Haves

Production experience with agent frameworks, planner-style systems, tool-use patterns, retrieval, and memory components.
Experience with vector databases such as FAISS, Milvus, pgvector, or Pinecone, and with feature stores.
Familiarity with LLM and embedding services, prompt and tooling patterns, and evaluation harnesses.
Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, autoscaling (HPA/KEDA), and GPU scheduling or operators.
Performance profiling experience with PyTorch profiler, Nsight, line-profiler, or the Ray dashboard.
Experience with vLLM, Triton Inference Server, ONNX Runtime, or TensorRT for high-throughput inference.
Master’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or a related area.
Knowledge of creating inclusive digital experiences and implementing WCAG 2.2 AA standards, assistive technologies, and digital accessibility best practices.

Responsibilities

Build agentic AI services that support planning, tool use, retrieval, and feedback loops, and integrate them with internal systems and APIs.
Implement orchestration, memory, tooling, evaluation, and guardrails for agentic workflows.
Collaborate with data science and machine learning engineering partners to productionize models, including LLMs, GNNs, and embedding services, behind stable APIs and SDKs.
Develop GPU-accelerated pipelines using RAPIDS and optimize end-to-end performance.
Use Ray or similar frameworks for distributed compute, batch and stream processing, and scalable workflow orchestration.
Profile and optimize CPU, GPU, memory, and I/O bottlenecks; implement caching, vectorization, and asynchronous patterns.
Design and maintain reliable microservices for training and inference, vector indexing, and real-time decisioning.
Implement observability, fault tolerance, auto-scaling, and cost-aware execution.
Create internal SDKs and command-line tools to streamline developer workflows, testing, and reproducibility.
Establish CI/CD for AI services, including unit, integration, and end-to-end tests, canaries, blue/green deployments, and rollback.
Integrate with feature stores, vector databases, artifact registries, and model catalogs.
Enforce security, privacy, and compliance through data minimization, PII handling, governance, and auditability.
Partner with product, platform, and data science and machine learning engineering teams to align requirements, SLAs, and success metrics.
Document systems, contribute to design reviews, and promote engineering best practices.
Mentor peers on AI systems patterns, distributed compute, and performance engineering.

Benefits

Performance-based incentive awards and bonuses.
401(k) match.
Stock purchase plan.
Medical, vision, and dental coverage.
Paid maternity and parental leave.
Paid time off, including sick leave; PTO and/or PPTO may also be used for vacation, holidays, or other purposes.
Family care leave.
Bereavement leave.
Jury duty and voting leave.
Company-paid life insurance.
Short-term and long-term disability coverage.
Company discounts.
Military Leave Pay.
Adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement.
Live Better U education benefit for eligible full-time and part-time associates, covering tuition, books, and fees for eligible programs.