below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
51%
of similar roles. Most pay
$165,000–$216,300
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$185k
versus about
$191k
for comparable roles.
Based on 240 similar postings.
Employer
About Target
Target Corporation is a large-format general merchandise and grocery retailer offering a wide assortment of everyday essentials, apparel, home goods, and electronics through stores and online. Industry: General Merchandise Retail
Target currently has
99 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$98,000–$176,000
across 69 roles with salary data.
The Lead Engineer – Platform AI – Cloud and Compute (full stack) serves as a technical anchor for the Platform AI team within the Cloud and Compute organization. This role involves creating and owning application architecture to build platform capabilities that make infrastructure safer and more transparent. You will develop end-to-end solutions including user interfaces, backend services, APIs, and agentic systems to automate routine work and connect fragmented knowledge. Key responsibilities include leading full-cycle implementations and defining technical strategies for scalable distributed systems. Required skills include proficiency in Java, Go, Python, TypeScript, JavaScript, or Kotlin, alongside experience with Kubernetes, containers, Kafka, and observability. You will solve complex infrastructure challenges by building secure, resilient, and auditable capabilities that reduce manual effort for engineering teams.
Create and own the application architecture to meet functional and non-functional product needs.
Drive architectural changes to accelerate feature development and improve quality of service.
Define technical direction and lead the development of end-to-end solutions for complex infrastructure challenges.
Build secure, resilient, and observable capabilities that reduce manual effort for engineering teams.
Embed trusted AI and agentic capabilities into developer workflows to automate routine work.
Design and operate highly scalable, reliable, and performant distributed systems.
Make sound engineering tradeoffs regarding performance, availability, scalability, security, and cost.
Lead full-cycle implementations of products, platform capabilities, or major technical initiatives from design to production.
What we're looking for
A 4-year degree or equivalent experience is required.
You must have 7+ years of software development experience with at least one full cycle implementation.
You must have experience leading at least one full-cycle implementation of a product, platform capability, infrastructure service, or major technical initiative.
You must have deep expertise in designing, building, and operating highly scalable, reliable, secure, and performant distributed systems.
You must have strong proficiency in multiple programming languages, frameworks, or technology stacks such as Java, Go, Python, TypeScript, JavaScript, or Kotlin.
You must have broad technical experience across cloud-native or platform engineering domains such as Kubernetes, containers, compute, storage, networking, Kafka, or observability.
You must demonstrate the ability to define technical strategy, influence architecture, and make sound engineering tradeoffs across performance, availability, scalability, security, and cost.
You must be able to communicate and coordinate with project teams, partners, and stakeholders.
Kubernetes
Java
Go
Python
TypeScript
JavaScript
Kafka
Containers
Distributed Systems
APIs
Observability
Site Reliability Engineering
Version Control
Networking
Storage
Messaging
Cloud-Native Infrastructure