Principal AI Engineer - Advanced AI (Machine Learning, Python, Deep Learning)

The pay range is $168,000.00 - $303,000.00

Pay is based on several factors which vary based on position. These include labor markets and in some instances may include education, work experience and certifications. In addition to your pay, Target cares about and invests in you as a team member, so that you can take care of yourself and your family. Target offers eligible team members and their dependents comprehensive health benefits and programs, which may include medical, vision, dental, life insurance and more, to help you and your family take care of your whole selves. Other benefits for eligible team members include 401(k), employee discount, short term disability, long term disability, paid sick leave, paid national holidays, and paid vacation. Find competitive benefits from financial and education to well-being and beyond at https://corporate.target.com/careers/benefits.

JOIN TARGET AS A PRINCIPAL AI ENGINEER – ADVANCED AI

About Us: 

Working at Target means helping all families discover the joy of everyday life. We bring that vision to life through our values and culture. Learn more about Target here.

A role with Target Data Sciences means the chance to help develop and manage state of the art predictive algorithms that use data at scale to automate and optimize decisions at scale. In this role you’ll be challenged to harness Target’s impressive data breadth to build the algorithms that power solutions our partners in Digital/Ecommerce, Marketing, Supply Chain Optimization, Search and Personalization. Every Scientist on Target’s Data Sciences team can expect modeling and software/product development of highly performant code for model performance to elevate Target’s culture and apply retail domain knowledge.

As a Principal AI Engineer - Advanced AI, you'll join Target's Advanced AI team, a centralized group focused on building and owning capabilities that use advanced AI technologies to drive automation, insight, and action across core business workflows. In this role, you'll provide deep technical leadership across enterprise AI initiatives by partnering with engineering, product, and business teams to shape scalable solution patterns, accelerate development, and deliver high-impact AI applications that optimize business workflows and create measurable value.

You will help design, build, deploy, and scale end-to-end AI solutions, including architecting agentic and LLM-powered systems, evaluating and selecting the right models and frameworks, and establishing strong observability, evaluation, and engineering practices to ensure solutions are production-ready, maintainable, and well-documented. Given the pace of change in this space, you will also stay current on emerging technologies, recommend tooling and architectural approaches, publish learnings for the team and broader organization, and influence technical direction and engineering standards across Advanced AI initiatives. We utilize Agile principles, follow best-practice software design, participate in code reviews, and create maintainable, well-tested codebases with relevant documentation.

Core responsibilities of this job are articulated within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs. 

About you:

• PhD or MS in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Applied Mathematics or a related technical field preferred
• Deep experience designing and delivering real-world AI and machine learning solutions including LLM-based, agentic, or other advanced AI systems in production environments
• 7 plus years of demonstrated hands-on experience in software engineering and applied AI/ML development - including Python and modern ML / deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow or similar tools
• Extensive experience with AI engineering tooling and platforms such as agent development frameworks, model APIs, evaluation and observability frameworks, cloud ML platforms, containers, and orchestration technologies
• Strong understanding of system design, model and architecture tradeoffs, experimentation, evaluation strategy, performance optimization, and production deployment considerations for AI systems
• Experience building scalable, maintainable, and well-tested services or platforms including version control, CI/CD, code review practices, and operational monitoring
• Ability to translate ambiguous business problems into clear technical approaches and create strong technical documentation, narratives, and recommendations for a range of audiences
• Excellent communication and influencing skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical partners and leaders
• Self-driven and results-oriented, with strong ownership, sound judgment, and the ability to move quickly while maintaining high technical standards in a fast-evolving domain
• Collaborative team player with experience working effectively across functions, organizations, and geographies, and with a demonstrated commitment to continuous learning and knowledge sharing

This position will operate as a Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement based on Target’s needs. A Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement means the team member’s core role will need to be performed both onsite at the Target HQ MN location the role is assigned to and virtually, depending upon what your role, team and tasks require for that day. Work duties cannot be performed outside of the country of the primary work location, unless otherwise prescribed by Target. Click here if you are curious to learn more about Minnesota.

Benefits Eligibility

Please paste this url into your preferred browser to learn about benefits eligibility for this role: https://tgt.biz/BenefitsForYou_F

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

In compliance with state and federal laws, Target will make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please reach out to candidate.accommodations@HRHelp.Target.com. Non-accommodation-related requests, such as application follow-ups or technical issues, will not be addressed through this channel.