Engineering Manager, Agent Discovery & Commerce Engineering

OVERVIEW

Live the experience. From professional empowerment to continual learning opportunities. From ongoing investment in new and emerging technologies to a career of self-determination. At Ulta Beauty, our tech team is critical to our scalability—and is recognized that way. We’ve been defined as a “mature start-up.” A place where interdepartmental exposure, open doors, and genuine collaboration is ubiquitous. Where challenges come fast and furious, requiring agility, mental dexterity, and creativity. Where our passion for better solutions drives us and is core to who we are.

We’re engineering for the future of retail, and it’s no-holds-barred. But for those motivated by continual change and ambiguity, by superior leadership, by whip smart colleagues who will press you daily for your very best, you’ll find that virtually nothing’s impossible at Ulta Beauty.

THE IMPACT YOU CAN MAKE:

The Engineering Manager, Agent Discovery & Commerce Engineering leads the engineering team responsible for AI-powered discovery and agentic commerce capabilities across external AI channels, partner ecosystems, and core commerce platforms. Product owns the guest problem, priorities, and business outcomes; this role owns people leadership, the technical roadmap, delivery execution, quality, and production operability, while partnering with Enterprise Architecture on enterprise patterns.

This role builds reusable agentic platform capabilities, common APIs, and integration patterns; takes capabilities from pilot to scalable production; and ensures security, observability, service-level objectives (SLOs), resilience, incident management, cost efficiency, and peak readiness. The manager is accountable for hiring, coaching, performance management, succession planning, team capacity, and developing engineers and technical leads.

YOU’LL ACCOMPLISH THESE GOALS BY:

• People Leadership: Hire, coach, and develop engineers and technical leads; manage performance, succession, capacity, role clarity, and team health.
• Engineering Ownership: Own the engineering team, technical roadmap, delivery execution, quality, and production operability. Translate product priorities into clear technical plans and commitments.
• Product & Stakeholder Partnership: Partner with Product, which owns the guest problem, priorities, and business outcomes, and align Business, Operations, Data, Security, and other stakeholders on scope, tradeoffs, dependencies, and readiness.
• Platform & Architecture: Build reusable capabilities, common APIs, and integration patterns that accelerate onboarding of new agentic surfaces and avoid one-off partner implementations. Partner with Enterprise Architecture on enterprise standards and patterns.
• Pilot to Production: Lead capabilities from pilot through scalable production, including security, observability, SLOs, resilience, release readiness, incident management, cost efficiency, and peak readiness.
• Agentic Engineering: Lead engineering across agent orchestration, agent protocols and interoperability standards, tool and API design, search and retrieval, evaluations and guardrails, external AI integrations, and core commerce platforms.
• Engineering Culture: Champion agile delivery, engineering excellence, continuous improvement, and responsible AI-enabled software development practices.

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Manage the engineering delivery cadence, including technical backlog readiness, sprint planning, release coordination, technical checkpoints, demonstrations, and status reporting.
• Ensure required engineering artifacts and governance evidence are complete and current, including solution designs, architecture decision records, interface contracts, test plans, release checklists, and operational runbooks.
• Establish and report engineering measures for delivery predictability, defect trends, platform reuse, partner onboarding time, availability, latency, quality, incident trends, and cost efficiency.
• Manage consultants, vendors, and onshore/offshore partners against clear deliverables, quality standards, productivity expectations, budgets, and contractual commitments.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, platforms, and partner solutions; recommend adoption based on guest and business value, technical fit, scalability, risk, and total cost of ownership.
• Maintain visibility into technical debt, platform lifecycle, and deprecation plans, with clear priorities and remediation paths.
• Apply approved AI tools responsibly to improve engineering productivity, quality, and delivery effectiveness across planning, documentation, development, testing, and incident analysis.
• Prepare and present engineering recommendations, delivery updates, investment needs, and key risks to senior leaders and governance forums.

SUCCESS MEASURES:

• Predictable delivery against committed roadmap milestones.
• Increased reuse of shared platforms, APIs, and integration patterns.
• Reduced onboarding time for new agentic surfaces and partners.
• Critical services meet agreed availability, latency, quality, and SLO targets.
• Reduced production incidents and repeated defects, with faster detection and recovery.
• Platform, model, and integration costs are visible and improve against agreed efficiency targets.

ESSENTIALS FOR SUCCESS:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, CIS, Engineering, or equivalent professional experience.
• 8+ years of experience in product development, software engineering, digital technology, or a related technical field.
• 5+ years of experience managing technology teams in a complex environment.
• Experience leading technical, engineering, and analytical teams, including coaching, performance management, capacity planning, and team development.
• Proven experience with agile, continuous delivery, iterative methodologies, sprint planning, backlog management, release planning, and delivery execution.
• Solid experience with hybrid and cloud environments, including cloud-native applications, APIs, microservices, SaaS platforms, and enterprise integrations.
• Experience leading engineering delivery for AI-enabled, agentic, digital commerce, or other emerging technology capabilities.
• Working knowledge of agentic engineering concepts, including agent orchestration, tool and API integration, search and retrieval, evaluations and guardrails, and external AI platform integrations.
• Proven experience eliciting requirements and translating product priorities into technical plans, system requirements, and delivery commitments.
• Solid experience preparing technical documentation, architecture summaries, solution designs, system specifications, and operational-readiness materials.
• Demonstrated experience using approved AI tools to improve engineering productivity, technical execution, delivery planning, documentation, testing, and release readiness.
• Strong judgment in applying AI-assisted outputs responsibly, including reviewing for accuracy, protecting sensitive information, following company security standards, and maintaining accountability for final decisions.
• Demonstrated experience in process modeling, workflow improvement, delivery optimization, and continuous improvement practices.
• Understanding of lifecycles across digital products, pilots, AI-enabled capabilities, platform services, and production systems.
• Experience supporting capabilities from pilot through production, including testing, security, observability, reliability, release readiness, incident response, and operational support.
• Demonstrated ability to think strategically about business, product, guest experience, AI, commerce, and technical challenges.
• Excellent analytical and troubleshooting skills, with the ability to solve complex problems efficiently and guide teams through technical ambiguity.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to work effectively with non-technical business partners, Product, Architecture, Operations, senior leaders, and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Ability to motivate teams, establish accountability, and drive desired results.
• Strong experience establishing engineering practices, delivery routines, quality standards, and operational-readiness processes.
• Demonstrated ability to present recommendations, risks, tradeoffs, investment needs, and delivery updates to senior leaders to support effective decision-making.
• Experience working with consultants, vendors, and teams in an onshore/offshore delivery model.
• Proven track record of delivering reliable, high-quality solutions against committed timelines.
• Flexibility to provide support during off-hours, weekends, and peak seasons as needed.
• Minimal travel required for training, conferences, planning sessions, or business needs.

The pay range for this position is $119,300.00 - $175,000.00 / Year with the opportunity for eligible associates to earn additional compensation pursuant to the Company’s bonus plan. Exact pay will be based on factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, level, shift, geographic location, and business and organizational needs. Full-time positions are eligible for paid time off, health, dental, vision, life and disability benefits. Part-time positions are eligible for dental, vision, life, and disability benefits. For additional information concerning our benefits, visit our Benefits and Career Development page: https://learn.bswift.com/ulta ABOUT

At Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ: ULTA), the possibilities are beautiful. Ulta Beauty is the largest North American beauty retailer and the premier beauty destination for cosmetics, fragrance, skin care products, hair care products and salon services. We bring possibilities to life through the power of beauty each and every day in our stores and online with more than 25,000 products from approximately 500 well-established and emerging beauty brands across all categories and price points, including Ulta Beauty’s own private label. Ulta Beauty also offers a full-service salon in every store featuring—hair, skin, brow, and make-up services.

We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest records, conviction records, or other criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of any applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the New York City Fair Chance Act.