Principal Engineer - Merchandising Capabilities
- Pay
- $168,000 – $303,000 per year
- Location
- Brooklyn Park, MN · On-site
- Job type
- Full-time
- Level
- Director
- Education
- Bachelor's degree
- Listed
- 14 days ago
Skills & highlights for this role
- Software architecture
- API design
- Cloud-native development
- Distributed systems design
- DevOps and continuous delivery
- Technical leadership
Also useful
- Event-driven architecture
- Merchandising or retail domain knowledge
- Pricing and promotions systems
- Observability tooling
- Proofs of concept and prototyping
About the role
The pay range is $168,000.00 - $303,000.00
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
About you
- Four-year degree in a related field or equivalent experience, with a commitment to continuous learning and staying current with relevant engineering practices and technologies.
- 12+ years of experience in technology development, software engineering, or technology services, including delivery of complex, production-grade systems.
- 4+ years of experience setting technical strategy, shaping architecture, and influencing engineering direction across teams or portfolios.
- Deep experience designing distributed systems and service-oriented architectures, including APIs, integration patterns, data modeling, and systems with demanding scalability, availability, performance, and reliability requirements.
- Experience with cloud technologies, containerized workloads and orchestration (such as Kubernetes), CI/CD, infrastructure automation, observability, and production operations.
- Strong programming and data technology experience, such as Java, SQL and NoSQL databases, and Python, along with the ability to assess technologies and select fit-for-purpose solutions.
- Ability to understand business fundamentals, connect technology choices to business outcomes, and communicate the financial, operational, and delivery trade-offs of architectural decisions.
- Demonstrated technical leadership, influence, collaboration, problem solving, planning, and organizational skills; able to build alignment across teams and mentor engineers at different levels.
- Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills, including the ability to explain complex technical concepts and recommendations clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Experience in retail, merchandising, pricing, promotions, or other high-volume transaction and decisioning domains is a plus.
Additional information
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
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
Non-accommodation-related requests, such as application follow-ups or technical issues, will not be addressed through this channel.
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.
As a Principal Engineer you set the strategy for software development and/or infrastructure engineering at Target. You set the direction for how software and infrastructure engineering efforts will be designed, developed, and operationalized across multiple portfolios and drives adoption across Target Tech. You lead and approve software and infrastructure engineering efforts to meet functional and non-functional requirements. You are a thought leader and mentor for internal and external technical talent and actively contribute to the external technical community.
About this Team
The Merchandising Capabilities team builds and evolves foundational technology that enables Target to plan, manage, and execute merchandising experiences at scale as part of Target’s leading with Merch enterprise priority. We partner across product, engineering, data, and business teams to deliver reliable, secure, and high-performing capabilities that support core merchandising workflows, including pricing and promotions. Our focus is on reusable platforms and APIs, clear domain boundaries, consistent data and business rules, and architecture that can adapt as Target’s business needs evolve.
Use your skills, experience and talents to be a part of groundbreaking thinking and visionary goals. As a Principal Engineer, you’ll take the lead as you…
- Set the long-term technical strategy and architecture for merchandising capabilities, aligning platform investments and engineering roadmaps to business priorities across multiple teams and portfolios.
- Lead the design and evolution of scalable, resilient, secure, and highly available services and APIs that support pricing, promotions, and other merchandising workflows across Target’s technology ecosystem.
- Drive sound domain and data architecture, including service boundaries, integration patterns, data contracts, business-rule ownership, and consistency across systems; guide teams toward solutions that are reusable and fit for enterprise scale.
- Establish engineering standards and reference architectures for API design, event-driven integration, cloud-native development, observability, performance, reliability, security, and operational readiness.
- Partner with product and business leaders, Enterprise Architecture, and engineering teams to translate business strategy into technical direction; evaluate trade-offs, quantify cost and risk, and use prototypes or proofs of concept to validate major decisions.
- Anticipate and address cross-platform technical risks, complexity, and technology lifecycle needs; lead modernization and simplification while balancing near-term delivery with long-term maintainability.
- Champion agile engineering and DevOps practices, including automated testing, continuous delivery, production health, incident learning, and measurable service-level objectives.
- Provide technical leadership across teams through architecture reviews, design guidance, coaching, and mentorship; build alignment without relying on direct authority and help grow technical talent.
Core responsibilities of this job are described within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs.
Equal opportunity and legal notices
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
From Target's careers page, first listed on Rolev.ai on October 27, 2026. Rolev.ai is not the employer.
How Rolev.ai helps with this application
Rolev.ai is a job search and application tool for US job seekers. For this Principal Engineer - Merchandising Capabilities role at Target, it shows how your resume fits, tailors your resume to the posting, and prepares the application for you to review.
See how you fit
Openings from employer career sites are ranked against your whole resume—and searchable inside Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor via Rolev.ai MCP.
Tailor without inventing
Every change to your resume is checked against your original. New experience goes in only with your yes—zero fabricated claims.
Draft the full kit
Tailored and Full Match resumes, role-specific cover letters, and answers to employer screening questions are prepared in seconds.
1-Click Extension Autofill
The Chrome extension fills the employer's Greenhouse, Workday, Lever, or Ashby form in 1 click. You review it and press Submit.
Common questions
What is the salary for the Principal Engineer - Merchandising Capabilities role at Target?
The Principal Engineer - Merchandising Capabilities posting at Target states compensation of $168,000 – $303,000 per year. It is listed as a full-time position. Final pay may depend on location, experience, and interview evaluation on Target's official career site.
Where is the Principal Engineer - Merchandising Capabilities job at Target located?
This Principal Engineer - Merchandising Capabilities position at Target is located in Brooklyn Park, MN (On-site). Always check Target's application page for specific state eligibility or relocation policies.
What qualifications are required for Principal Engineer - Merchandising Capabilities at Target?
For the Principal Engineer - Merchandising Capabilities role, Target highlights a bachelor's degree; experience with Software architecture, API design, Cloud-native development, Distributed systems design, DevOps and continuous delivery, Technical leadership. Rolev.ai can score your existing resume against these requirements and show any skill gaps before you apply.
How do I apply for the Principal Engineer - Merchandising Capabilities position at Target?
This listing links directly to Target's application page. You can apply directly on Target's site, or use Rolev.ai to check your resume fit, generate a zero-hallucination tailored resume and cover letter for this posting, and autofill the application form in 1 click with the Rolev.ai Chrome extension. You always review the form and press Submit yourself.