Staff Software Engineer, Customer

Overview:

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Staff Software Engineer to play a critical role in delivering REI’s Customer Data Management (CDM) Platform with advanced Agentic and Generative AI capabilities. In this role, you will serve as a hands-on AI expert and technical thought leader, designing and implementing AI-powered services and agentic workflows that unlock the full value of customer data across the enterprise. You will be a key influencer in REI’s AI and data transformation, shaping how customer data is ingested, unified, governed, and activated through intelligent systems. This includes ensuring the ethical, scalable, and performant application of machine learning, NLP, LLMs, generative, and agentic AI to drive personalization, decisioning, and automation across customer and employee experiences. Working closely with cross-functional partners in Product, Architecture, Analytics, and Engineering, you will help define the technical direction of the CDM platform, embed AI intelligence into core data pipelines and activation layers, and enable both real-time and strategic use cases. Your work will directly influence how REI understands its customers and delivers more relevant, trusted, and engaging experiences at scale. Responsibilities:

As a Staff Software Engineer, your responsibilities will include:

• Strategy & Architecture: Collaborate with Architecture, Product, and Business stakeholders to define REI's Agentic AI strategy and roadmap, translating business objectives into scalable, actionable initiatives.
• Technical Leadership: Lead and support the team to design, develop, implement, document, and maintain features, applications, or system components, within the core AI platforms.
• Mentorship & Best Practices: Enliven the AI COE by demonstrating coding standards, model evaluation methodologies, responsible AI guidelines, and MLOps practices.
• Cross-Functional Influence: Collaborate with Product, Merchandising, Marketing, Retail and Operations to identify high-impact use cases and drive successful pilot programs and widespread adoption of AI solutions.
• Reliability: Participate in 24/7 incident response for AI systems, ensuring reliability and performance.

Requirements* Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience.

• 6+ years of software engineering experience, with history of building AI/ML systems.
• Experience with AI/ML frameworks and libraries such as TensorFlow and PyTorch.
• Proficiency in Java and Spring frameworks
• Proficiency in Python, with a strong understanding of the full machine learning lifecycle, from data engineering to model deployment.
• Experience with CI/CD for ML (MLOps), including tools like MLflow, Kubeflow, or Argo.
• Experience with cloud-based AI platforms (e.g., AWS SageMaker, Azure ML, GCP Vertex AI).
• A strong grasp of AI ethics, fairness, and interpretability.
• Experience contributing to AI projects in large-scale enterprise environments.
• Exceptional problem-solving skills and the ability to think critically and strategically.
• Strong communication and leadership skills with a proven ability to influence and mentor teams.

Closing: At REI, we believe the outdoors is for all. We are committed to becoming a fully inclusive, anti-racist, multicultural organization. We know that there's strength in our diversity – that each employee brings unique skills, experiences, and perspectives. Every day you are driving change, fostering a culture of respect, and knowing you're backed by benefits that support your whole life. To work towards this commitment and fulfill our brand promise of inspiring and enabling a life outside for everyone, we seek employees who demonstrate different ways of working, create a sense of belonging, and actively listen and learn. Pay Transparency We are committed to practices that promote pay equity and transparency. As required by applicable Pay Transparency laws, REI provides a range of compensation for roles that may be hired in locations under these requirements. Factors that may be used to determine your actual salary may include a wide array of factors, including: your specific skills and experience, geographic location or other relevant factors.

REI offers all regular employees a generous employee discount, access to health benefits, a retirement savings plan and accrued time off. Click here for a detailed overview of benefits plans by employee profile. Base Pay Range: $130,200.00 - $208,200.00 per year