Sr. Engineer, AI Platform Engineering

Want to help pets live their best lives?

We’re proud to be where the pets go and where the pet people go. If you want to make a real difference, create an exciting career path, feel welcome to be your whole self and nurture your wellbeing, Petco is the place for you.

Our core values capture that spirit as we work to improve lives by doing what’s right for pets and people.

• Pet First - Protect & Empower. All pets should Live their Best Life. We put the needs of pets and pet parents at the center of everything we do.

• Foster the Fun - Connect & Bond. Our Passion for pets brings us together! We celebrate the journey of pet parenthood through distinct experiences, products, and services.

• Let’s Go! Own & Commit. We are stronger as One Petco team. We bring our unique superpowers and champion authenticity in everyone to drive success.

About Petco:

We’re proud to be "where the pets go" to find everything they need to live their best lives for more than 60 years - from their favorite meals and toys, to trusted supplies and expert support from people who get it, because we live it. We believe in the universal truths of pet parenthood - the boundless boops, missing slippers, late night zoomies and everything in between. And we’re here for it. Every tail wag, every vet visit, every step of the way. We are 29,000+ strong and together we nurture the pet-human bond in more than 1,500 Petco stores across the U.S., Mexico and Puerto Rico, 250+ Vetco Total Care hospitals, hundreds of preventive care clinics and eight distribution centers. In 1999, we founded Petco Love. Together, we support thousands of local animal welfare groups nationwide and have helped find homes for approximately 7 million animals through in-store adoption events.

Sr. Engineer, AI Platform Engineering

Job Summary

The Sr. Engineer, AI Platform Engineering will play a critical role in the design, architecture, and deployment of scalable AI infrastructure, foundation models, and generative AI solutions across Petco. This role requires deep expertise in AI platform engineering, model serving, vector databases, and LLMOps/MLOps pipelines. The Sr. Engineer will collaborate closely with cross-functional software engineering, product, and data teams to drive innovation, establish robust AI platform capabilities, and contribute to the strategic technology vision of the organization.

Key Responsibilities

AI Architecture & Solution Design

• Lead end-to-end AI architecture and solution design to build resilient, enterprise-grade platform infrastructure.
• Design and implement Generative AI capabilities, including LLMs, foundation models, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), and Agentic AI / AI agents.
• Architect efficient model serving and high-throughput inference systems optimized for real-time and batch workloads.
• Integrate embeddings, vector databases, and cloud AI/ML services into core engineering products.

MLOps, LLMOps & Infrastructure

• Establish and champion MLOps and LLMOps best practices across the engineering organization.
• Build automated CI/CD pipelines specifically tailored for AI/ML applications, ensuring seamless testing, deployment, evaluation, and monitoring.
• Design end-to-end AI platform pipelines emphasizing scalability, security, high availability, and performance.

Research & Platform Innovation

• Stay at the forefront of artificial intelligence technologies, open-source foundation models, and emerging platform tooling.
• Lead evaluation and proof-of-concept initiatives for cutting-edge generative AI frameworks, inference engines, and vector stores.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & AI Integration

• Partner with software engineers, system architects, and business stakeholders to drive seamless AI application integration into production ecosystems.
• Translate complex enterprise requirements into robust, reusable AI platform services and developer APIs.

Mentorship & Knowledge Sharing

• Provide technical leadership, architectural guidance, and mentorship to software and platform engineers.
• Maintain comprehensive documentation of AI architectures, platform interfaces, design patterns, and operational procedures.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence and contribute to internal technical knowledge repositories.

Continuous Improvement

• Continuously evaluate and optimize AI platform infrastructure, runtime performance, resource utilization, and reliability.

Qualifications and Requirements

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience in software engineering, platform engineering, or AI engineering in production environments.
• Proven track record in end-to-end AI solution design, model serving, inference optimization, and AI application integration.
• Strong expertise with Generative AI concepts including LLMs, foundation models, RAG architectures, embeddings, and vector databases.
• Hands-on experience implementing MLOps / LLMOps frameworks and building robust CI/CD pipelines for AI/ML applications.
• Advanced programming proficiency in languages such as Python, Go, or Java.
• Demonstrated technical leadership and mentorship capabilities.
• Excellent problem-solving, architectural design, and communication skills.

Preferred Skills

• Deep hands-on experience with major cloud platforms and cloud AI/ML services (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud).
• Strong familiarity with containerization, microservices, and orchestration tools (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, Ray).
• Experience with distributed systems and big data technologies.
• Strong foundation in modern software development methodologies, API design, and system reliability engineering (SRE).

Qualified applications with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act.

Petco Animal Supplies, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, protected veteran status, or any other protected classification.

The pay ranges outlined below are presented in accordance with state-specific regulations. These ranges may differ in other areas and could be subject to variation based on regulatory minimum wage requirements. Actual pay rates will depend on factors such as position, location, level of experience, and applicable state or local minimum wage laws. If the regulatory minimum wage exceeds the minimum indicated in the pay range below, the regulatory minimum wage will be the minimum rate applied.

/ year

For a more detailed overview of Petco Total Rewards, including health and financial benefits, 401K, incentives, and PTO -see https://careers.petco.com/us/en/key-benefits

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