Engineer, AI & Automation

Overview

Great brands reflect culture. The best ones help shape it. At Foot Locker, we’re rooted in sport, powered by style, and driven by the communities that move both. From Foot Locker and Kids Foot Locker to Champs Sports, WSS, and atmos, our brands sit at the intersection of sport, style, and self-expression.

As part of the DICK’S Sporting Goods family, you’re backed by the resources, reach, and career opportunities of a world-class sports company. That unleashes Foot Locker to keep pushing forward with the agility and edge that define the brand. We’re looking for great people who want to influence culture and the generation that is shaping what’s next.

Whether you’re building strategy, shaping innovations, or creating unforgettable customer moments, you’ll contribute to decisions and experiences that define our brands’ impact in the communities we serve.

Come change the game with us. Apply today!

This Role is 100% REMOTE, US Based

At this time, Foot Locker will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization, or offer any immigration related support for this position (i.e. H1B, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, F-1 CPT, J-1, TN, or another type of work authorization.

Foot Locker is seeking an experienced and innovative Engineer, AI & Automation who has a proven track record of building enterprise-level platform components that support product development across multiple teams and lines of business. The Engineer will develop, test, deploy, and support AI and intelligent automation solutions across the retail enterprise, including AI agents, RAG solutions, automation workflows, APIs, and enterprise integrations serving merchandising, inventory, supply chain, store operations, digital commerce, and analytics. The Engineer will collaborate with architects, engineering, and business teams to deliver secure, scalable, reliable, and production-ready AI solutions.

AI products delivered by this team are used every day by store, merchandising, supply chain, digital commerce, and corporate teams across Foot Locker’s brands and digital channels.

Scope of the role: builds components and features within established enterprise AI patterns, with design decisions guided by senior engineers and architects.

Responsibilities

This role will include, but will not be limited to the following responsibilities:

• Develop and maintain AI, GenAI, RAG, and automation applications
• Build AI agents and workflows using approved enterprise AI frameworks and architecture patterns
• Develop prompts, APIs, integrations, Python services, and automation workflows
• Connect AI applications to structured and unstructured enterprise data, including enterprise knowledge, ontology, and semantic layer sources
• Implement embeddings, vector search, semantic retrieval, and RAG pipelines
• Integrate solutions with Snowflake, Databricks, Azure, Power BI, APIs, and enterprise applications
• Support retail AI use cases across merchandising, inventory, supply chain, stores, digital commerce, and analytics
• Write clean, reusable, testable, and well-documented code
• Develop automated unit, integration, regression, and AI evaluation tests covering groundedness, retrieval quality, task success, latency, and cost per request
• Support CI/CD deployment and environment management across development, test, and production
• Monitor AI applications for quality, performance, reliability, security, and cost
• Troubleshoot defects and production issues in partnership with senior engineers
• Follow enterprise standards for AI governance, security, privacy, PII protection, and Responsible AI
• Participate in POCs and rapidly evaluate emerging AI and automation technologies

Qualifications

At Foot Locker, we value innovation, authenticity, and integrity in all that we do.  To uphold the security and fairness of our hiring process, we ask that candidates refrain from using AI tools, including ChatGPT, during interviews and assessments.  To ensure a smooth and secure experience, please review the following guidelines:

• Cameras must be on for all virtual interviews.
• AI tools are strictly prohibited during interviews or assessments.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation as we work together to create a transparent and equitable hiring experience.

• 2-4+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, automation, applied AI, or related development roles
• Strong programming skills in Python and SQL
• Experience developing REST APIs and data/application integrations
• Understanding of Generative AI, LLMs, prompt engineering, RAG, embeddings, and vector search
• Familiarity with AI agent/orchestration frameworkssuch as LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, or equivalent
• Experience with cloud platforms, preferably Microsoft Azure
• Exposure to Snowflake, Databricks, or similar modern data platforms
• Knowledge of Git, CI/CD, testing, logging, and monitoring
• Understanding of data security, privacy, and software engineering best practices
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, collaboration, and communication skills
• Experience in Retail, Digital Commerce, Supply Chain, or Customer Analytics domains preferred
• Experience working in Agile product delivery environments preferred
• Azure AI Engineer or equivalent certifications preferred

PREFERRED SKILLS

Experience with Azure OpenAI, Snowflake Cortex AI, Databricks, Power BI/Fabric, Docker/Kubernetes, and Model Context Protocol (MCP), or equivalent technologies. Exposure to retail data or retail business processes is valued.

DESIRED CHARACTERISTICS

• Public cloud experience, preferably Azure or AWS
• Previous experience at a fortune 500 company

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES

The Engineer, AI & Automation role has no direct reports. The Engineer is expected to contribute to design and code reviews and to share knowledge within the team.

QUALIFICATIONS 

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. The successful candidate will have a high degree of motivation, exceptional attention to detail, and the ability to derive answers from communications with multiple parts of the business. This person will also require the ability to work well within a team atmosphere and has the flexibility to help with a variety of the department goals.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

Bachelor’s degree (B.S.) from a four-year college or university, or an Associate degree in programming from a technical college, and 4 or more years of related experience and/or training, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

The candidate must be able to communicate with others in a simple, clear, and understandable manner. Must also have the ability to read and interpret all forms of communication. The ability to write reports for management and professional correspondence, as well as to speak effectively before peers, management, customers, and other associates of the organization is required.

REASONING ABILITY

The candidate must effectively plan and execute unusual and difficult work. Takes initiative and is decisive and quick, when appropriate. All while adhering to the team’s standards and patterns and practices. Must have the ability to solve practical and impractical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists. Ability to interpret a variety of instructions furnished in written, oral, diagram, or schedule form. Deals constructively with conflict and disagreement.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS 

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit and talk or hear.  The employee must regularly lift and/or move up to 10 pounds.  Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, and ability to adjust focus.

WORK ENVIRONMENT 

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet, however positive, work-driven collaboration is encouraged. 

Benefits

The annual base salary range is $90,000 - $120,000 / year. This range represents the anticipated low and high end of the salary for this position. Salary will be determined by the education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of the applicant, internal equity, and alignment with market data. Salary is one component of the Foot Locker, Inc. total compensation package, which includes the below.

Foot Locker Benefits:

• Employee Discount
• Paid Time Off
• Medical | Dental | Vision Coverage
• 401(k) | Roth 401(k)
• Stock Purchase Plan
• Life Insurance
• Flexible Spending Account
• Opportunities for Advancement
• Tuition Reimbursement for Qualified Courses
• Strong Company Culture
• Employee Resource Groups