At Nordstrom, we're more than a luxury retailer – we're a company built on a foundation of customer service, innovation, and a relentless commitment to delivering the best experiences for our customers. Technology is at the heart of our ability to create these experiences, and we're on an exciting journey to leverage AI and agents to make those moments even more personalized, seamless, and impactful.
We're looking for a collaborative and forward-thinking Director of Engineering, PDLC Agents Platform to lead the strategy, development, and delivery of Nordstrom's agentic software delivery system — the platform that guides engineering teams from idea to shipped, production feature through named specialist digital worker agents (AI personas assigned to specific required gates in the delivery lifecycle, such as security, architecture, UX, process compliance, and SRE), persistent project memory, and enforced safety guardrails. This role sits at the center of Nordstrom's transformation towards an AI Native Operating Model for its product development lifecycle. The role owns the multi-agent platform that enables this transformation.
The platform spans the full breadth of a complex agentic system including orchestration, CLI based UI, context engineering, cost management, observability, evaluations, governance, reporting and integration with 3P coding agents (e.g. Claude Code) and models. You'll work closely with stakeholders across not just the central AI organization but all engineering teams across Nordstrom as well as all business and technical context owners for various domains. This is a highly technical leadership role where you'll build technology and cultivate a culture of engineering rigor, safe experimentation, and continuous learning. Experience with building agentic systems involving evaluations and context engineering is a requirement.
This role is offered as hybrid in Seattle, WA. Candidates must be available to work in office at the Nordstrom corporate headquarters a minimum of 4 days/week to be considered for this position.
A day in the life...
- Set the Vision: Define the strategy and roadmap for the PDLC Agents Platform, aligned to Nordstrom's AI-Native Operating Model and broader business and technology goals.
- Build the Paved Road: Lead development of the platform's digital worker (agent) fleet and the delivery lifecycle it enforces — project initialization, product design, development, ship and operate — so the compliant path is the fastest path.
- Make Shipping a Real Gate: Own the platform's ship-time policy gate so no agent or change ships unless it's registered, instrumented, guardrail-wrapped, and eval-backed.
- Collaborate Across Teams: Partner with Security, UX, Architecture, Data Science, Product, and the run-time control-plane team to define and enforce one policy-as-code spine — data classification (including PCI/PII boundaries), approved tools and models, and autonomy tiers — consistently at build time and run time.
- Lead with Standards: Drive adoption of open agent standards — MCP (Model Context Protocol), A2A (Agent-to-Agent), and OTEL GenAI tracing — as the platform's framework-agnostic foundation, so authoring stays open rather than locked to one vendor.
- Grow the Team: Build, mentor, and inspire a high-performing engineering team, and build a succession and talent pipeline of engineering managers and senior engineers.
- Drive Operational Excellence: Establish best practices for the end-to-end agent lifecycle — build, ship, monitor, and retire — with an emphasis on scalability, security, and responsible autonomy.
- Partner on Rollout: Work with domain engineering and business leaders (Merchandising, Customer Experience, and other pilot domains) to roll out AI-Native squads, confirm required guardrails run every cycle, and support teams as they progress up the autonomy "autopilot dial."
You own this if you have...
- 10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in leadership roles, including experience leading platform, developer-tools, or agentic/AI engineering teams.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (advanced degrees are a plus).
- Have a strong technical background in agentic AI systems in production — coding agents, multi-agent orchestration, context engineering and agentic evaluations.
- Understand build-time versus run-time governance trade-offs, and have designed or enforced policy-as-code controls in a regulated or high-stakes environment.
- Are a natural collaborator and communicator, able to translate complex technical concepts for a variety of audiences and build strong partnerships across Security, Data Science, and Product.
- Have a proven track record of hiring, mentoring, and growing engineering teams, with an ability to inspire and motivate others through a major platform migration.
- Are passionate about using AI and agents to solve meaningful problems and create exceptional, trustworthy customer experiences.
We'd Love It If You Also…
- Have working knowledge of agent standards and run-time governance tooling: MCP, A2A, OTEL GenAI, agent identity/on-behalf-of ("OBO") authorization, and AI gateway or observability platforms.
- Have experience in retail, e-commerce, or other customer-focused industries with PCI (Payment Card Industry) or PII (Personally Identifiable Information) data-handling requirements.
#LI-Hybrid
Pay Range Details
The pay range(s) below has been provided in compliance with state specific laws. Pay ranges may be different for other locations.
Pay offers are dependent on the location, as well as job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.
We’ve got you covered…
Our employees are our most important asset and that’s reflected in our benefits. Nordstrom is proud to offer a variety of benefits to support employees and their families, including:
- Medical/Vision, Dental, Retirement and Paid Time Away
- Life Insurance and Disability
- Merchandise Discount and EAP Resources
This position may be eligible for performance-based incentives/bonuses. Benefits include 401k, medical/vision/dental/life/disability insurance options, PTO accruals, Holidays, and more. Eligibility requirements may apply based on location, job level, classification, and length of employment. Learn more in the Nordstrom Benefits Overview by copying and pasting the following URL into your browser: https://careers.nordstrom.com/pdfs/Ben_Overview_20-21.pdf
A few more important points...
The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive. There may be additional duties, responsibilities and qualifications for this job.
For Los Angeles or San Francisco applicants: Nordstrom is required to inform you that we conduct background checks after conditional offer and consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with legal requirements per Los Angeles, Cal. Muni. Code 189.04 and the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. For additional state and location specific notices, please refer to the Legal Notices document within the FAQ section of the Nordstrom Careers site.
Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation should contact the nearest Nordstrom location, which can be identified at www.nordstrom.com.
Please be mindful that there may be legal notices and requirements related to this job posting that are specific to your state. Review the Career Site FAQ’s for relevant information and guidelines.
Current Nordstrom employees: To apply, log into Workday, click the Careers button and then click Find Jobs.
Nordstrom keeps job postings open for at least one day after the posting date.
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Skills Required
- 10+ years of software engineering experience
- At least 5 years in engineering leadership roles
- Experience leading platform, developer-tools, or agentic/AI engineering teams
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
- Production experience with agentic AI systems, coding agents, multi-agent orchestration, context engineering, and agentic evaluations
- Experience designing or enforcing policy-as-code controls in a regulated or high-stakes environment
- Ability to collaborate and communicate complex technical concepts across Security, Data Science, Product, and other teams
- Proven experience hiring, mentoring, and growing engineering teams
- Working knowledge of MCP, A2A, OTEL GenAI, agent identity or OBO authorization, and AI gateway or observability platforms
- Experience in retail, e-commerce, or customer-focused industries with PCI or PII data-handling requirements
- Advanced degree
Nordstrom Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Nordstrom and has not been reviewed or approved by Nordstrom.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare options are described as broad, including medical, dental, and vision coverage alongside virtual care and mental health support. Additional protections like disability coverage, life/AD&D, and accounts such as HSA/FSA further strengthen the overall health-and-protection offering.
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Retirement Support — Retirement benefits include a 401(k) plan with a defined employer match structure and access to additional financial programs like an employee stock purchase plan. Commuter accounts, transit subsidies, and adoption assistance add to the overall financial support beyond base pay.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time-away benefits include PTO accrual, paid holidays, bereavement leave, parental and bonding leave, and a sabbatical program after tenure. PTO sharing and donation options expand flexibility in how time off can be used and supported across colleagues.
Nordstrom Insights
What We Do
When you join Nordstrom, you join a fast-paced and entrepreneurial environment is paired with the strong history and experience of the Nordstrom retail legacy. We have access to some of the greatest minds in retail and technology and are constantly creating innovative strategies to develop the ultimate apparel solutions.
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