Sr. Architect, AI & Automation

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 Sr. Architect, AI & Automation to design and lead the enterprise architecture vision for Generative AI, Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Automation, and AI-powered digital transformation initiatives. This role is responsible for designing scalable AI platforms, reusable frameworks, reference architectures, and enterprise standards that enable rapid adoption of AI capabilities across Merchandising, Supply Chain, Stores, Digital, Finance, and Customer domains. Partner closely with business and technology leaders to architect next-generation AI solutions leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs), AI Agents, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), intelligent automation, and modern cloud-native platforms. This individual will provide deep technical leadership, establish enterprise AI governance frameworks, and drive innovation by transforming business processes into AI-enabled products and experiences.

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: sets enterprise patterns, guardrails, and build-versus-buy decisions across teams, and is accountable for reusability and governance rather than for any single product.

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

• Define the enterprise AI, GenAI, Agentic AI, and Automation architecture and roadmap aligned with business and technology strategy
• Architect scalable solutions using LLMs, RAG, AI agents, workflow automation, APIs, and event-driven architectures
• Define the architecture and integration of agents, skills, workflow orchestration, MCP services, development tools, and reusable libraries

• Establish patterns for AI agents and multi-agent workflows, including orchestration, graph and state design, conditional routing, tool and API calling, memory, checkpointing, guardrails, human-in-the-loop processes, and observability

• Design enterprise RAG architectures integrating structured and unstructured data, vector databases, embeddings, semantic search, ontology and knowledge graph models, and enterprise knowledge repositories
• Integrate AI capabilities with enterprise data platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, Azure, Power BI, and operational applications

• Define best practices for LLMOps, lifecycle management, prompt and version management, testing, evaluation, deployment, monitoring, observability, and cost optimization, including standard measures for groundedness, retrieval quality, task success, latency, and cost per task
• Partner with business and technology leaders to translate strategic goals into scalable AI and automation solutions

• Define standards for Responsible AI, security, privacy, RBAC, PII protection, data governance, model governance, and regulatory compliance
• Evaluate AI technologies, foundation models, frameworks, and vendors and provide architecture recommendations based on business requirements
• Design reusable AI services, APIs, connectors, accelerators, and reference architectures to enable adoption across multiple teams
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to architects, data engineers, software engineers, and analytics teams

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.

• 7+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, ML/AI engineering,
  automation, or related areas, with hands-on experience delivering AI solutions
• Strong hands-on understanding of Generative AI, LLMs, Agentic AI, RAG, embeddings, vector search, prompt engineering, and AI orchestration
• Experience with AI frameworks/platforms such as Azure OpenAI/OpenAI APIs, LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, or equivalent technologies
• Strong cloud architecture experience, preferably Microsoft Azure, including identity, networking, security, APIs, containers, serverless services, and integration patterns
• Strong experience with modern data platforms such as Snowflake and/or Databricks
• Knowledge of Python, SQL, REST APIs, JSON, microservices, event-driven architecture, and integration patterns
• Experience with LLMOps, CI/CD, GitHub/Azure DevOps, infrastructure-as-code, automated testing, monitoring, and observability
• Strong understanding of enterprise data governance, AI governance, security, privacy, RBAC, and responsible AI
• Experience integrating AI solutions with enterprise applications, data platforms, BI platforms, APIs, and workflow systems
• Ability to translate complex AI technologies into business capabilities, architecture roadmaps, and measurable outcomes
• Strong communication and presentation skills with the ability to influence engineering teams, business stakeholders, directors, and executive leadership

• Experience in Retail, Digital Commerce, Supply Chain, or Customer Analytics domains preferred
• Experience working in Agile product delivery environments preferred
• Azure AI Engineer, Azure Solutions Architect, or equivalent certifications preferred

PREFERRED SKILLS

Experience with Snowflake Cortex AI, Databricks, the Microsoft Copilot ecosystem, vector databases, AI gateways, Model Context Protocol (MCP), agent-to-agent integration, and enterprise knowledge management, or equivalent technologies would be valuable. Retail, supply chain, merchandising, inventory, customer analytics, or other large-scale enterprise domain experience is also preferred.

DESIRED CHARACTERISTICS

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

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES

The Sr. Architect, AI & Automation role has no direct reports. The Sr. Architect is expected to provide architectural direction across multiple engineering teams and to mentor senior engineers, architects, and contract resources.

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 9+ 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. 

The annual base salary range is $150,000 - $190,000 / 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)
• Life Insurance
• Flexible Spending Account
• Opportunities for Advancement
• Tuition Reimbursement for Qualified Courses
• Strong Company Culture
• Employee Resource Groups