Principal - Architecture (AI, Unified Commerce)

About the Role

As a senior leader within the Architecture Group under the CTO Organization, the Principal Architect – AI, Connected Commerce / OMNI-Channel will drive the vision, design, and execution of an integrated technology architecture that powers seamless, intelligent, and personalized customer experiences across all digital and physical touchpoints.

This role spans strategic domains—Digital, Retail Stores, Supply Chain, Customer Data, eCommerce, Marketing, and Fulfillment—and serves as a critical change agent, enabling Connected and Agentic Commerce. The architect will influence enterprise-wide technology modernization, blueprints, and AI-driven commerce initiatives to unlock growth, improve customer satisfaction, and drive operational efficiency.

This position plays a pivotal role in integrating AI-powered decisioning, personalization, and commerce agents into the technology landscape to support proactive, autonomous, and context- aware experiences.

What You'll Do

• Champion the use of Agentic Commerce patterns—autonomous shopping agents, proactive assistant bots, and AI-driven fulfillment orchestration—to create frictionless, next-gen shopping experiences.
• Design intelligent, AI-augmented experiences that integrate predictive personalization, dynamic pricing, virtual styling, conversational commerce, and autonomous checkout journeys.
• Integrate commerce ecosystems with real-time decision engines, customer data platforms (CDPs), recommendation systems, and AI models to drive adaptive journeys.
• Partner with product, engineering, and data science teams to implement AI across the customer lifecycle—from acquisition and engagement to loyalty and retention.
• Define architectural principles to scale AI/ML use cases, leveraging cloud-native platforms (GCP, AWS), serverless models, and data mesh strategies.
• Architect future-ready, omnichannel commerce platforms supporting unified experiences such as BOPIS, Same-day Delivery, and Endless Aisle.
• Ensure architecture enables real-time signals processing (e.g., clickstream, IoT, POS), contextual understanding, and action-triggering across commerce surfaces.
• Lead architectural reviews and governance for AI-based and connected commerce projects.
• Guide experimentation with GenAI, LLMs, and autonomous agents in commerce, marketing, and fulfillment use cases.
• Collaborate with data, privacy, and compliance teams to align AI-powered experiences with data governance and ethical AI frameworks.

Who You Are

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or related field; Master’s preferred.
• 10+ years of architecture, with at least 5+ years in commerce or omnichannel large scale transformation roles.
• Demonstrated experience architecting and delivering commerce platforms across:
• Headless eCommerce (Shopify, Salesforce Commerce, etc.)
• Digital Experience Platforms (CMS, DAM, PIM)
• Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), Loyalty & Personalization Engines
• Retail POS, OMS, and Fulfillment Systems
• Deep knowledge of cloud-native architectures, microservices, event-driven systems (Kafka, GCP Pub/Sub), and serverless patterns.
• Experience integrating AI/ML services into customer-facing applications, preferably in real-time or large-scale environments
• Experience with Agentic AI frameworks or commerce focused LLMs.
• Familiarity with AI platforms like Vertex AI, Amazon Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, or
  similar.
• Working knowledge of data pipelines, model deployment (MLOps), and experimentation platforms.
• Exposure to composable commerce and MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) architecture.
• Retail, CPG, or DTC brand experience with personalization and omnichannel
  engagement initiative
• Strategic mindset with a strong grasp of emerging tech and its impact on business.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills—especially around complex AI and tech-driven business value.
• Ability to balance short-term business needs with long-term Gap’s Architecture vision.
• Highly collaborative with a passion for innovation, experimentation, and user-centered design.
• Comfortable driving clarity and structure in ambiguous and fast-moving environments