Pay is based on several factors which vary based on position. These include labor markets and in some instances may include education, work experience and certifications. In addition to your pay, Target cares about and invests in you as a team member, so that you can take care of yourself and your family. Target offers eligible team members and their dependents comprehensive health benefits and programs, which may include medical, vision, dental, life insurance and more, to help you and your family take care of your whole selves. Other benefits for eligible team members include 401(k), employee discount, short term disability, long term disability, paid sick leave, paid national holidays, and paid vacation. Find competitive benefits from financial and education to well-being and beyond at https://corporate.target.com/careers/benefits.
About us:
Working at Target means helping all families discover the joy of everyday life. We bring that vision to life through our values and culture. Learn more about Target here.
The Sr. Engineering Manager (SEM) is responsible for a managing a team of engineers. This role is accountable for leading a team, developing code, deploying and managing in production. You will be called upon to be the technical representative for your team during cross-team collaborative efforts and planning. Success in this role will require strong and innovative approaches to problem solving, great technical leadership, excellent communication (written and verbal, formal and informal), flexibility, accountability and a self-motivated working style with attention to detail.
About this Team:
Kafka powers analytics, operational systems, and AI across Target. As ingestion shifts left, enforceable schema governance and data quality at the edge are critical. This role owns the strategy and execution of a scalable, automated schema management platform that reduces producer friction, enforces enterprise standards, and strengthens data trust across domains.
In this role, you will:
• Lead the evolution of data contracts and schema standards across Avro, JSON, and Protobuf, enabling reliable, scalable producer–consumer integrations.
• Drive production-grade reliability for schema and ingestion services, including resilience, observability, and SLA alignment.
• Partner across platform and data engineering teams to modernize ingestion patterns that power analytics and AI.
• Guide the structured migration and sunset of Autobahn while maintaining stability, reliability, and cost discipline.
This role directly influences Target’s enterprise data posture and AI-readiness at scale.
This leader will:
Define and execute a multi-year platform vision grounded in strong product thinking, contract-first architecture, and enterprise governance standards.
Lead technical strategy and hands-on delivery, driving architecture decisions aligned to Target platform and security standards.
Champion reliability, quality, and operational discipline across development and production operations.
Influence enterprise direction, partner with Product to shape roadmap, and drive Agile and DevOps excellence.
Build and develop high-performing engineering teams, providing coaching, staffing strategy, and performance leadership.
Job duties may change at any time due to business needs.
About you:
7+ years of software engineering experience, with 1–3 years of people leadership or equivalent delivery ownership.
Proven experience building and operating cloud-native, distributed systems and high-performance APIs at scale.
Strong background in resilient production architecture, reliability engineering, and raising engineering standards.
Demonstrated product leadership (roadmaps, OKRs, migration execution) and experience with contract-driven or schema-governed platforms.
Track record of building and developing high-performing teams within large enterprise environments.
Ability to influence cross-domain stakeholders and drive alignment across complex ecosystems.
Strong communication skills with the ability to simplify complex technical concepts for diverse audiences.
Deep understanding of Agile, CI/CD, and incremental value delivery.
Preferred: knowledge of Target infrastructure and platform services, vendor management experience, and leading geographically distributed teams.
This position will operate as a Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement based on Target’s needs. A Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement means the team member’s core role will need to be performed both onsite at the Target HQ MN location the role is assigned to and virtually, depending upon what your role, team and tasks require for that day. Work duties cannot be performed outside of the country of the primary work location, unless otherwise prescribed by Target. Click here if you are curious to learn more about Minnesota.
Benefits Eligibility
Please paste this url into your preferred browser to learn about benefits eligibility for this role: https://tgt.biz/BenefitsForYou_EAmericans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
In compliance with state and federal laws, Target will make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please reach out to [email protected]. Non-accommodation-related requests, such as application follow-ups or technical issues, will not be addressed through this channel.
Skills Required
- 7+ years of software engineering experience
- 1-3 years of people leadership or equivalent delivery ownership
- Proven experience with cloud-native, distributed systems and high-performance APIs
- Strong background in resilient production architecture and reliability engineering
- Experience with contract-driven or schema-governed platforms
- Demonstrated product leadership skills
Target Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Target and has not been reviewed or approved by Target.
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Healthcare Strength — Health benefits are accessible to hourly team members at relatively low hour thresholds and include no‑cost, 24/7 virtual medical care and expanded mental‑health support. This breadth is positioned as a relative strength compared to typical retail offerings.
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Retirement Support — Retirement programs include a dollar‑for‑dollar 401(k) match with immediate vesting and options like Roth 401(k) and stock purchase. These features strengthen long‑term savings for a wide range of roles.
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Parental & Family Support — Family support includes paid family leave, backup care, and reimbursements for adoption and surrogacy. These resources complement paid time off and holidays for eligible team members.
Target Insights
What We Do
Target is an American retailing company providing access to a wide selection of products such as furniture, electronics, toys, and more. Target is one of the world’s most recognized brands and one of America’s leading retailers. We make Target our guests’ preferred shopping destination by offering outstanding value, inspiration, innovation and an exceptional guest experience that no other retailer can deliver. Target is committed to responsible corporate citizenship, ethical business practices, environmental stewardship and generous community support. Since 1946, we have given 5 percent of our profits back to our communities. Our goal is to work as one team to fulfill our unique brand promise to our guests, wherever and whenever they choose to shop.
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