(USA) Staff, Machine Learning Engineer

Position Summary...

What you'll do...

Role summary:
As a Staff Machine Learning Engineer at Walmart, you will lead the design and deployment of scalable, production-grade ML solutions that address critical business challenges. This role involves overseeing the full ML lifecycle, from data engineering to model monitoring, while driving platform alignment and operational excellence across cloud environments. You will provide technical leadership, mentor engineering teams, and foster innovation through advanced techniques such as AutoML and NLP. Your expertise will ensure robust, maintainable systems that deliver measurable impact, supporting Walmart’s commitment to continuous improvement and technical excellence.
About the team:
Walmart Data Ventures powers the data and AI platform supporting the world’s largest retailer’s suppliers. The Walmart Scintilla team transforms extensive data into actionable insights, recommendations, and innovations that enhance customer, merchant, and supplier outcomes. This team leads advancements in generative AI, agentic intelligence, machine learning, measurement, and causal inference to redefine retail experiences, optimize operations, and develop new business models. Joining this team offers the opportunity to lead cutting-edge AI initiatives that set industry standards and drive significant impact across the retail ecosystem.
What you'll do:

• Lead design and delivery of scalable, production-grade ML and AI systems.
• Translate business problems into technical requirements, architectures, and measurable success criteria.
• Productionize DS prototypes across batch, real-time, and agentic workloads.
• Own ML lifecycle, SDLC, CI/CD, versioning, testing, deployment, evaluation, observability, and monitoring.
• Design systems balancing model quality, latency, throughput, reliability, scalability, maintainability, and cost.
• Build reusable ML infrastructure, frameworks, and platform capabilities.
• Lead production LLM/agentic systems including retrieval, tool calling, orchestration, and state management.
• Establish offline and online evaluation practices to detect regressions, drift, quality degradation, and production failure modes.
• Drive architecture reviews, engineering standards, mentorship, and continuous innovation.

What you'll bring:

• Strong software engineering fundamentals with proficiency in Python, SQL, system design, testing, CI/CD, and production operations.
• Extensive experience designing and operating large-scale ML systems across training, evaluation, batch and real-time inference, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
• Strong understanding of MLOps, distributed systems, cloud-native architectures, APIs, containers, and relational/NoSQL data platforms.
• Experience building reusable ML infrastructure, frameworks, and observability capabilities.
• Strong foundation in algorithms, data structures, and machine learning methods.
• Experience with LLM and agentic systems, including retrieval, tool calling, orchestration, and evaluation.
• Ability to balance model quality, latency, throughput, reliability, scalability, maintainability, and cost effectively.
• Demonstrated technical leadership, mentorship, and effective cross-functional communication.

At Walmart, we offer competitive pay as well as performance-based bonus awards and other great benefits for a happier mind, body, and wallet. 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. The amount you receive depends on your job classification and length of employment. It will meet or exceed the requirements of paid sick leave laws, where applicable. For information about PTO, see https://one.walmart.com/notices. 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.
Eligibility requirements apply to some benefits and may depend on your job classification and length of employment. Benefits are subject to change and may be subject to a specific plan or program terms.
For information about benefits and eligibility, see One.Walmart.
Bentonville, Arkansas US-09158: The annual salary range for this position is $130,000.00 - $260,000.00
Sunnyvale, California US-11658: The annual salary range for this position is $169,000.00 - $338,000.00 Additional compensation includes annual or quarterly performance bonuses. Additional compensation for certain positions may also include :
- Stock

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Minimum Qualifications...

Outlined below are the required minimum qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no minimum qualifications.

Option 1: Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or related area and 4 years’ experience in software engineering, machine learning engineering, AI systems or related area.
Option 2: 6 years’ experience in software engineering, machine learning engineering, AI systems or related area.

Preferred Qualifications...

Outlined below are the optional preferred qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no preferred qualifications.

Master’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or related area and 2 years' experience in software engineering, machine learning engineering, AI systems or related area., Prior work experience in accessibility best practices., Prior work experience 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.

Primary Location...

2608 Se J St, Bentonville, AR 72716-3724, United States of America

Walmart and its subsidiaries are committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace and has a no tolerance policy regarding the use of illegal drugs and alcohol on the job. This policy applies to all employees and aims to create a safe and productive work environment.