Senior AI Engineer Hybrid

Wesfarmers OneDigital is building Australia's leading data and digital retail ecosystem, underpinned by AI across everything we do. We operate across four pillars - loyalty, data, retail media and AI, turning millions of customer interactions into insights that shape how Australians shop, live and connect.

We're expanding one of our most innovative teams and are looking for exceptional talent to join the AI Build Squad to help our divisions make the most of emerging technologies.

This is your chance to build cutting-edge AI solutions that reach millions of customers across Australia's leading retailers. You'll work at the forefront of emerging technologies, solve complex business challenges, and help accelerate our AI transformation journey.

The Senior AI Engineer is the hands-on technical lead for assigned AI and GenAI initiatives. They shape the solution design, turn ambiguous requirements into deliverable work, write production code and own the path through deployment and early-life support. They can lead a small delivery stream without needing each implementation decision prescribed. 

The role works within the Accelerator's agreed architecture and engineering patterns, applying sound judgement to local decisions and involving the Principal AI Engineer when a choice creates material enterprise risk or a new cross-team pattern. The Senior AI Engineer builds the tests, evaluations, tracing, monitoring and integrations needed for reliable production operation. 

The Senior AI Engineer lifts the team through thoughtful reviews, pairing and practical mentoring. They collaborate with AI Data Engineers and enterprise specialists, document useful delivery patterns, and contribute reusable components without carrying portfolio-wide standards or governance accountability.

What you’ll do

• Lead solution design and technical delivery for assigned AI and GenAI initiatives 
• Write clean, maintainable and well-tested production code on the critical delivery path 
• Turn ambiguous requirements into a practical design and sequenced engineering work 
• Own a solution from technical discovery through deployment and early-life support 
• Make local design decisions within agreed architecture and escalate material trade-offs 
• Build automated tests and evaluations for AI behaviour and conventional software behaviour 
• Add tracing, monitoring and logging that make production behaviour understandable 
• Integrate AI applications with enterprise APIs, data sources and business systems 
• Diagnose complex issues across code, prompts, models, retrieval, integrations and infrastructure 
• Lead code and technical design reviews for the initiatives they support 
• Guide AI Engineers through pairing, feedback and practical technical mentoring 
• Work with AI Data Engineers to make appropriate enterprise data available to solutions 
• Work with cyber, architecture, platform, data and governance teams on requirements 
• Apply established engineering patterns and propose improvements based on delivery evidence 
• Document useful patterns and contribute reusable components to the engineering community 
• Use AI coding tools and automation extensively in day-to-day engineering work 

What you’ll need

• Strong software engineering experience building and supporting production applications 
• 7+ years of relevant software engineering experience 
• Hands-on experience designing and delivering LLM or GenAI applications 
• Experience leading the technical delivery of a production AI, ML or GenAI solution 
• Experience integrating applications with APIs, databases and enterprise systems 
• Experience with cloud platforms, cloud-native services and production operations 
• Experience working effectively in a large enterprise technology environment 
• A relevant tertiary qualification is desirable but not essential
• Advanced capability in at least one modern programming language, with modern application development frameworks 
• Strong knowledge of GenAI patterns including RAG, agents, tool use and structured outputs 
• Strong software engineering fundamentals across source control, testing, CI/CD and observability 
• Experience with cloud AI services, agent frameworks, embeddings, vector search and RAG 
• Experience with containers, cloud deployment and infrastructure-as-code 
• Practical understanding of evaluation, monitoring, cost and production support for AI systems 
• Ability to investigate unfamiliar technical problems and turn findings into maintainable software 
• Clear communication and the ability to guide engineers and work across technical disciplines 

About Wesfarmers

As one of Australia’s largest listed companies, we’re proud of our longstanding contribution to Australians. We continually reinvent ourselves and invest in the businesses we own and operate, including leading retailers like Bunnings, Kmart, Target, Officeworks and Priceline. We also have an online offering, including OnePass and the Group shared data asset. Our work doesn’t stop there, we operate in the industrials sector which supplies the nation with chemicals, energy and fertilisers, and industrial and safety products. And we participate in an integrated lithium joint venture, including the operation of a mine and concentrator and the development of a refinery.

Join the team at Corporate Office which provides support and advice across the Wesfarmers Group

The Corporate Office provides corporate services and support to the autonomous businesses within the Wesfarmers Group, enabling the achievement of Group objectives. It leads capital allocation and portfolio management for the Group and focuses on leveraging and enhancing the Group’s reputation to support attraction and retention of talent, securing investment opportunities and maintaining a low-cost capital. To do this, we need great people, working together and role modelling our values and ways of working.

Our culture

We’re results focused, but we’re a business that cares. Here we are less about titles and more about everyone playing a valuable role. We provide autonomy and space with freedom to operate, quickly learning from mistakes because we know they are part of the way forward. We’re curious, open minded, and collaborative. And although we’re thought leaders, we’re humble, and willing to share knowledge and learn from one another.

We know that diversity fosters greater innovation and better customer connection, so we strive to create an inclusive and diverse work environment.

Next steps  

If this sounds like your next career move, click on the ‘Apply’ button. Please note that we may commence interviewing of candidates prior to this closing date.

We’re hiring the best and the brightest talent. Let’s start to explore the possibilities of achieving great things together.

For more information, visit our website at https://www.wesfarmers.com.au