Principal Software Engineer

## Principal Software Engineer Apply locations:
Seattle, WAtime type:
Full time posted on:
Posted Todayjob requisition :
R-862338##
** Job Description
** Nordstrom, a leading fashion retailer, is seeking a highly skilled
** Principal Software Engineer
** to join our Inventory Technology team.  Inventory is Nordstrom’s biggest investment and the productive use of it is critical to the company’s success. Our team is responsible for the movement execution and optimization of inventory across a network of 400+ stores and our warehouses, as well as the visibility and traceability of the inventory. Lastly, we are also responsible for the systems that support all of the reverse logistics lifecycle for Nordstrom.

Our platform provides a real-time, unified representation of inventory state, enabling stores, fulfillment centers, and enterprise stakeholders to make informed decisions about stock availability, movement, and allocation.  We’re also at the forefront of applying AI and agentic architectures to transform how inventory systems are built, tested and operated.

As a
** Principal Software Engineer**, you will play a crucial role in building technology to improve the way we move, track and optimize our inventory. As a key member of our Inventory technology leadership team, you will oversee the design, architecture, and implementation of critical technology. Your expertise will be instrumental in driving innovation and ensuring the scalability, reliability, and performance of our technology.
** A day in the life...
*** Set technical direction for a 150+ engineering org on how the org designs, builds, and ships code, with agentic development practices where agents write code and engineers provide the context and review
* Architect and develop complex systems at scale that meet SLA’s, KPI's and engineering standards
* Design and evolve event-driven, microservices-based architectures (e.g., streaming platforms such as Kafka) that power real-time inventory visibility, movement, and traceability across our store, warehouse, and RFID systems
* Collaborate with and influence senior technology and business leaders to recommend solutions and articulate trade-off’s
* Set technical direction and strategy across the Inventory Technology portfolio, serving as the domain’s technical authority to peer engineering organizations (Supply Chain, Merchandising, Data Science) and enterprise business stakeholders
* Lead engineers across multiple teams through projects by providing guidance on software design and development
* Diagnose and remedy performance or security issues
* Demonstrates expertise in industry standards for secure development practices
* Apply expertise with telemetry solutions and products available in the industry
* Contributes to great open source, community projects and engineering standards
* Mentor and elevate Senior engineers across the broader Inventory Technology organization; help acquire and retain top engineering talent
* Stay hands-on: build POCs and dig into complex problem areas directly, not just at the whiteboard
** You own this if you have...
*** Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, Computer Engineering, or related field
* 10+ years of professional software engineering experience
* Highly proficient with Java and Python
* Highly experienced with AWS and/or GCP
* Hands-on experience with agentic AI systems; experience with AWS Bedrock Agent Core is a strong plus
* Experience with Agile methodologies with a continuous improvement and quality mindset
* Dev Ops experience with track record of improving time to recovery and mitigating failures
* Highly experienced with various CI/CD process and tools (Git Lab) and containerization technologies
* Highly skilled at applying architectural patterns to express complex scalable systems that optimize for simplicity, operational support and implementation velocity
* Experienced with developing data science enabled solutions using big data and traditional software skills
* Experience leveraging AI, particularly Generative AI, to enhance platform automation, reduce operational costs, and improve engineering productivity. Identify opportunities where AI can…