Lead AI Automation Engineer

Job ID: 275431
Location Name: CA-FSC SF Off (0174)
Address: 350 Mission St, 20th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105, United States (US)
Job Type: Full Time
Position Type: Regular
Job Function: Information Technology
Remote Eligible: Hybrid Schedule

Company Overview:

At Sephora we inspire our customers, empower our teams, and help them become the best versions of themselves. We create an environment where people are valued, and differences are celebrated. Every day, our teams across the world bring to life our purpose: to expand the way the world sees beauty by empowering the Extra Ordinary in each of us. We are united by a common goal - to reimagine the future of beauty .

The Opportunity:

Technology

Our technology team works fast and smart. With San Francisco as our home, we take bringing new tech to market seriously. We love what we do, and we have fun doing it. The Technology group is comprised of motivated self-starters and true team players who are integral to the growth of Sephora and our future success.

Your role at Sephora...

We are seeking an experienced Lead AI Automation Engineer with deep interest and expertise in Agentic AI, Generative AI, and automation frameworks to drive innovation in our software development lifecycle (SDLC). This role will focus on designing, developing, and implementing AI-powered solutions that enhance quality, accelerate delivery, and transform how engineering teams build, test, and release products.

As a Lead AI Automation Engineer, you will:

• Partner with engineering, DevOps, and product teams to introduce intelligent, autonomous quality engineering practices that shift-left and shift-right quality across the lifecycle.
• Serve as both a strategic thought lead and hands-on technical expert in applying Agentic AI to the SDLC life cycle from requirements, build, testing, defect prevention, and observability.
• Define the next era of end to end development where autonomous, intelligent systems help scale quality, reduce human toil, and enable faster, safer software delivery.
• Directly influence how engineering teams adopt AI responsibly and effectively to achieve higher velocity and quality.

Responsibilities:

• Provide hands-on technical expertise, guidance, and mentorship to develop Agentic AI driven quality solutions, across multiple SDLC phases. Design and implement AI agents to autonomously analyze requirements, generate code, generate test scenarios, create/maintain automated test scripts, and identify gaps, risks and potential defects early in the cycle.
• Partner with DevOps and SRE teams to integrate AI-driven quality checks into CI/CD pipelines. Develop AI agents for code reviews, security scans, performance optimization and monitor production environments for anomaly detection and self-healing recommendations.
• Lead innovation pilots and POCs, evaluating emerging AI/ML tools, and recommend scalable adoption strategies. Establish and maintain MLOps practices for the AI lifecycle (model training, deployment, monitoring, and governance) and automate processes across the engineering pipeline. Coach and mentor technical teams on leveraging Gen AI and Agentic AI for productivity and quality improvements.

We're excited about you if you have:

• 5+ years of deep understanding of GenAI models (Transformers, GPT, BERT, diffusion models), Agentic AI concepts (LLM orchestration, autonomous agents, RAG, prompt engineering, vector DBs), and AI/ML toolkits to solve quality engineering challenges.
• 5+ years of proven experience applying AI/ML or GenAI solutions to Develop/QE/DevOps workflows.
• 5+ years of experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and AI/ML toolkits (LangChain, LlamaIndex, HuggingFace, OpenAI APIs, etc.).
• 8-12 years of experience/knowledge of observability tools (Dynatrace, Datadog, Splunk, Grafana, etc.) and CI/CD systems (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab, Azure DevOps).
• Nimble skillset and flexible with regards to changing priorities & business need
• Demonstrated ability to develop strong alliances with those outside of your immediate organization
• Prior experience in managing globally distributed high performing teams
• Strong interviewing skills and mentoring others contributing to their career growth
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills including the ability to work effectively with technical and non-technical staff
• Strong leadership and stakeholder management skills.

The annual base salary range for this position is $173,610.00 - $192,900.00 The actual base salary offered depends on a variety of factors, which may include, as applicable, the applicant’s qualifications for the position; years of relevant experience; specific and unique skills; level of education attained; certifications or other professional licenses held; other legitimate, non-discriminatory business factors specific to the position; and the geographic location in which the applicant lives and/or from which they will perform the job. Individuals employed in this position may also be eligible to earn bonuses. Sephora offers a generous benefits package to full-time employees, which includes comprehensive health, dental and vision plans; a superior 401(k) plan, various paid time off programs; employee discount/perks; life insurance; disability insurance; flexible spending accounts; and an employee referral bonus program. This job will be posted for a minimum of 5 days.

While at Sephora, you’ll enjoy…

• The people. You will be surrounded by some of the most talented leaders and teams – people you can be proud to work with.
• The learning . We invest in training and developing our teams, and you will continue evolving and building your skills through personalized career plans.
• The culture . As a leading beauty retailer within the LVMH family, our reach is broad, and our impact is global. It is in our DNA to innovate and, at Sephora, all 40,000 passionate team members across 35 markets and 3,000+ stores, are united by a common goal - to reimagine the future of beauty.

You can unleash your creativity , because we’ve got disruptive spirit. You can learn and evolve , because we empower you to be your best. You can be yourself , because you are what sets us apart. This , is the future of beauty. Reimagine your future, at Sephora.

Sephora is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, military/veteran status, or disability status. Sephora is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to applicants with physical and mental disabilities.

Sephora will consider for employment all qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law.