ABOUT THE ROLE
Zalando’s Zalando Assistant team is looking for a Principal AI Scientist to help us build the future of retail through conversational AI experiences powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) and intelligent agents. Your expertise will be key in designing and developing AI-driven systems that support fashion discovery, trend exploration, outfit recommendations, and conversational shopping experiences.
As a Principal AI Scientist, you’ll play a significant role in shaping the architecture and capabilities of the Zalando Assistant. You will work on AI agents, RAG pipelines, prompt engineering, and LLM integrations, ensuring high-quality, grounded, and engaging conversations. Your domain will span the full customer lifecycle, helping drive customer activation, engagement, retention, and conversion through intelligent conversational experiences.
This is a hands-on role with direct impact on customer-facing experiences. You will build and improve production AI agents used by millions of customers, working closely with product and engineering partners to deliver measurable business impact through improved product discovery, recommendation relevance, and purchase conversion.
You will be at the center of fostering a culture of experimentation and innovation, ensuring assistant improvements are rigorously evaluated using both offline and online metrics. Your work will directly influence business impact, improving engagement, retention, and long-term customer value through conversational AI.
INCLUSIVE BY DESIGNAt Zalando, our vision is to be inclusive by design. And this vision starts with our hiring - we do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, personal expression, ethnicity, religious belief, or disability status. You are welcome to leave out your picture, age, or marital status from your application. We only assess candidates on their qualifications and merit.
We want to provide you with a great candidate experience. Feel free to inform us of any accommodations you may need, so we can best support you throughout the hiring process.
do.BETTER - our diversity & inclusion strategy: https://corporate.zalando.com/en/our-impact/dobetter-our-diversity-and-inclusion-strategy
Our employee resource groups: https://corporate.zalando.com/en/our-impact/our-employee-resource-groups
WHAT WE’D LOVE YOU TO DO (AND LOVE DOING)Design and build conversational AI agents
Develop and integrate RAG pipelines to enrich experiences with fresh, contextual data
Design, tune, and evaluate LLM prompts to improve response quality and user engagement
Integrate LLMs with search, recommendation, and external APIs
Define and implement evaluation frameworks for conversation quality and grounding
Run experiments and optimize assistant performance for business KPIs (conversion, engagement, retention)
Own the architecture, development, and deployment of LLM-powered agent workflows
Collaborate cross-functionally with engineering, product, and data science teams
Mentor colleagues and share best practices in applied AI and agent development
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
10+ years of experience in the field of engineering or applied science.
Strong Python skills and experience building production-grade applications
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
Experience optimizing AI systems for business KPIs
Any of the following is a strong plus:
Experience building LLM-powered applications or AI agents
Experience with prompt engineering, tuning, and evaluation
Experience with agent frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, PydanticAI, DSPy, or similar
Experience integrating LLMs with external APIs, tools, and/or RAG systems
Experience evaluating conversation quality and defining LLM metrics is a plus
Experience with vector databases, embeddings, or retrieval systems
Zalando provides a range of benefits, here’s an overview of what you can expect. Ask your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about what we offer.
Employee shares program
40% off fashion and beauty products sold and shipped by Zalando, 30% off Zalando Lounge, discounts from external partners
2 paid volunteering days a year
Hybrid working model with 60% (or more) remote per week, actual practice is up to each team to best support their collaboration
Work from abroad for up to 30 working days a year
27 days of vacation a year to start
Relocation assistance available (subject to prior agreement)
Family services, including counseling and support
Health and wellbeing options (including Gympass)
Mental health support and coaching available
Drive your development through our training platform and biannual peer-to-peer review Learn all about Zalando and our values here: https://jobs.zalando.com/en/?gh_src=22377bdd1us
Skills Required
- 10+ years of experience in engineering or applied science
- Strong Python skills
- Experience building production-grade applications
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
- Experience optimizing AI systems for business KPIs
- Experience building LLM-powered applications or AI agents
- Experience with prompt engineering, tuning, and evaluation
- Experience with agent frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, PydanticAI, DSPy, or similar
- Experience integrating LLMs with external APIs, tools, or RAG systems
- Experience evaluating conversation quality and defining LLM metrics
- Experience with vector databases, embeddings, or retrieval systems
Zalando Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Zalando and has not been reviewed or approved by Zalando.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Paid time off includes a sizable annual allowance that can grow with tenure, plus additional paid days for volunteering. This breadth is highlighted as supportive of work–life balance.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Mental health support, round‑the‑clock counseling for employees and households, and broad fitness/wellness access are emphasized as robust. Substantial product discounts and partner offers add meaningful lifestyle value.
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Parental & Family Support — Structured support around parental leave—such as buddy programs, re‑onboarding, and paid child sick days—helps ease family responsibilities. Flexible and part‑time leadership options further accommodate parents.
Zalando Insights
What We Do
Welcome to Zalando. Here’s some key info about us: Our position and vision: - We’re Europe’s leading online platform for fashion and lifestyle - Founded in Berlin in 2008, we bring head-to-toe fashion to more than 50 million active customers in 25 markets; offering clothes, footwear, accessories, and beauty - Our vision is to become The Starting Point For Fashion. Our offering: - Our assortment of international brands ranges from world-famous names to local labels - Our platform is a one-stop fashion destination for inspiration, innovation, and interaction - As Europe’s most fashionable tech company, we work hard to find digital solutions for every aspect of the fashion journey: for our customers, partners, and friends of our brand. - Our logistics network with 12 centrally located fulfillment centers allows us to efficiently serve our customers throughout Europe, supported by warehouses in Italy, France, Poland, and Sweden with a focus on local customer needs. Our beliefs: - Our ambition is to combine our passion for self-expression through fashion with our unwavering commitments to sustainability and D&I - We believe that our integration of fashion, operations, and online technology gives us the capability to deliver a compelling value proposition to both our customers and fashion brand partners.
