This role pays more than
61%
of similar roles. Most pay
$135,000–$214,500
— the shaded band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$195k
versus about
$175k
for comparable roles.
Based on 240 similar postings.
Employer
About Walmart
Walmart Inc. is the world''s largest retailer by revenue, operating a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores, as well as a growing e-commerce presence through Walmart.com. Industry: General Merchandise & Grocery Retail
Walmart currently has
184 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$117,000–$234,000
across 180 roles with salary data.
(USA) Distinguished, Software Engineer serves as a senior individual contributor and technical leader within the Colony Platform team in the AI & Data organization. This role focuses on shaping the long-term technical vision, architecture, and engineering excellence for enterprise-scale AI/ML systems. The engineer will lead architectural reviews for GenAI integrations, model serving, and intelligent pipelines while establishing standards for reliability, security, and performance. Key responsibilities include mentoring senior engineers, driving technical strategy, and ensuring responsible AI governance across the organization. Required skills include experience with distributed software systems, cloud-native design, and observability tools like structured logging and metrics. Preferred expertise includes LLM tool-calling, agentic systems, and schema frameworks such as JSON Schema, OpenAPI, Pydantic, or protobuf. The role addresses the complex challenge of building scalable, high-impact AI infrastructure to support large-scale enterprise operations.
What does a Software Engineer earn in California?
Median $214000 from 775 postings across 63 companies.
Define and drive the technical vision for enterprise-scale AI/ML platforms and ecosystems.
Lead architecture reviews and establish design principles for GenAI integrations, model serving, and intelligent pipelines.
Set architectural standards for reliability, security, scalability, and performance across all AI systems.
Provide hands-on technical guidance to multi-team engineering and data science groups on lifecycle practices.
Develop patterns for safe, governed, and responsible AI adoption across internal platforms.
Mentor senior individual contributors and technical leaders to elevate engineering standards and code quality.
Influence executive stakeholders on technical trade-offs and strategic decisions regarding AI infrastructure.
Advocate for platform performance, cost efficiency, and operational maturity through active participation in design sessions.
What we're looking for
Candidates must have a Bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field and 6 years of software engineering experience, or 8 years of experience without a degree.
Applicants must have at least 10 years of experience building and operating large-scale, distributed software systems.
Candidates must have a proven track record as a senior individual contributor driving system architecture or technical strategy.
Required expertise includes AI/ML systems productionization, model serving, orchestration, and performance considerations.
Experience with observability tools including structured logging, metrics, traces, and debugging distributed flows is required.
Candidates must possess strong expertise in scalable cloud-native design and platform engineering.
The role requires the ability to influence engineers and leaders without direct managerial authority.
Excellent communication skills are required to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Cloud-native Architecture
Microservices
Containers
CI/CD
Python
Java
JavaScript
C++
Machine Learning
AI
DevOps
API Design
System Design
Observability
Software Prototyping