Principal Engineer, Agentic AI

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What will you do?

A day in the life of a Principal Agentic AI Engineer at VF looks a little like this. The Principal Agentic AI Engineer is a hands‑on technical leader embedded in VFCorporation’s centralized Agentic AI team. This team operates as a cross‑brand, cross‑region Center of Excellence that builds and deploys AI agents for every brand in VF’s portfolio and every function in VF’s enterprise. This role carries a dual mandate that is critical to VF’s agentic AI strategy:

• Own the pro‑code development of production‑grade agentic AI, building custom agents, multi‑agent orchestration, complex integrations, and bespoke solutions that require deep engineering expertise.
• Evangelise and enable low-code development across brand and business functions, empowering citizen developers to build, extend, and maintain their own agents while establishing the guardrails, patterns, templates, and governance that make decentralised agent creation safe and effective.

You are the engineer who builds the hardest agents yourself and makes it possible for everyone else at VF to build the rest. You set the architectural patterns, create the reusable components, establish the integration connectors, and define the quality standards that the entire VF organization inherits.

Platform Polyglot

You think in terms of agent platforms and frameworks as a portfolio – the right tool for each job. Copilot Studio for enterprise productivity & Azure AI Foundry for custom builds. Governance by Design: governance is what makes innovation scalable. Build guardrails into every template, every connector, and every training so that decentralised agent creation is safe.

Azure AI Foundry – Custom Agentic Application Development

Architect and build production‑grade custom agentic applications on Azure AI Foundry using Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, Azure AI Agent Service, Prompt Flow, and Semantic Kernel. Build and maintain VF’s custom RAG pipelines and vector databases and develop agent evaluation and testing infrastructure on Azure: building task‑specific benchmarks, LLM‑as‑judge evaluation pipelines, red‑team testing harnesses, and regression test suites. Implement agent observability, tracing, monitoring, Application Insights, and custom telemetry – providing VF’s Agentic AI team with real‑time visibility into performance, cost, error rates, and impact. Contribute to VF’s responsible AI practices by implementing guardrails, content safety filters, PII detection and masking, prompt injection defenses, and bias mitigation across all Azure AI Foundry.

Low-code Evangelism & Citizen Developer Enablement

Design and deliver training for Copilot Studio, structured in tiers: Foundational (business analysts building first agents), Intermediate (power users adding custom connectors and knowledge sources), and Advanced (technical builders using MCP, HITL, and multi‑agent patterns). Build and publish VF’s “Agent Developer Guide” and an agent template gallery – a curated library of pre-built, governance‑approved agent design patterns, connector libraries, governance requirements, testing standards, and deployment checklists. Track and govern developer adoption metrics: count, usage, business value delivered by decentralised agents, and quality/governance compliance rates—demonstrating the ROI. Identify when citizen‑built agents are hitting the ceiling of low‑code capabilities and transition them to pro‑code solutions, either by extending with custom connectors or migrating to Azure AI Foundry.

Technical Responsibilities

Architecture & Design Design the integration layer between VF’s agent platforms and enterprise systems of record using custom connectors, APIs, MCP servers, and event-driven architectures. Architect secure, performant RAG pipelines that ground VF’s agents in enterprise knowledge with proper chunking, embedding, indexing, and retrieval strategies. Establish VF’s standards for agent memory, state management, and context handling across both short-lived conversational interactions and long-running autonomous workflows. Development & Delivery Write production-quality code (TypeScript, Python, C#) for custom agents, orchestration logic, tool integrations, evaluation pipelines, and deployment automation on Azure AI Foundry. Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for agent development across both Copilot Studio and AI Foundry and develop custom connectors and MCP servers that expose VF’s enterprise systems to agents. Implement comprehensive agent testing: unit tests for tool functions, integration tests for system connectors, evaluation tests using LLM‑as‑judge and human review, and performance testing. Governance & Quality Define and enforce VF’s agent quality standards across both pro‑code and citizen-built agents: accuracy, hallucination tolerance, response SLAs, cost, and brand voice. Implement governance automation for Copilot Studio: DLP policies, Entra Agent ID enforcement, environment controls, agent publishing approval workflows, and automated compliance scanning. Build VF’s agent observability stack: dashboards showing agent health, usage, cost, quality scores, escalation rates, and business impact across all brands and functions. Own incident response for production agent issues: rapid diagnosis, remediation, root cause analysis, and post-incident improvements.

What do you need to succeed?

We all have unique skills that we bring to work and celebrate every day. For this role, there are foundation skills you’ll need to succeed and excel. Additionally, while formal education in a related field is great to have, we are most interested in your years of experience and professional achievements.

• 8+ years of software engineering experience (Senior) or 12+ years (Principal), with at least 2 years focused on AI/ML systems, conversational AI, or agentic AI platforms.
• Deep hands‑on expertise with Copilot Studio, including both low-code authoring (topics, knowledge, actions, agent flows) and pro-code extension (custom connectors, Power Platform components, ALM).
• Strong production experience with Azure AI Foundry (Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, Prompt Flow, Semantic Kernel, Azure AI Agent Service) building custom agentic applications.
• Proficiency in at least two additional agent frameworks beyond the Microsoft ecosystem: LangChain/LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI, or comparable orchestration frameworks.
• Deep understanding of agentic AI patterns: multi-agent orchestration, tool-use and function calling, RAG architectures, embedding strategies, evaluation methodologies guardrails, and MCP.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: TypeScript, Python, or C#; RESTful and GraphQL API design; event-driven architectures; CI/CD; infrastructure-as-code (Bicep, Terraform); containerization.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to present to both engineering peers and business leaders, translating technical concepts into business-relevant language.
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, AI/ML, Engineering, or a related field. Masters preferred.
• Experience with Sierra AI or comparable AI platforms for consumer-facing customer service agents.
• Background in Power Platform administration, governance, and toolkit deployment.

Hiring Range

Hiring Range: $159,840.00 USD – $199,800.00 USD annually

Incentive Potential

Incentive Potential: This position is eligible for additional compensation awards that may include an annual incentive plan, sales incentive, or commission potential. Specific details of the additional compensation eligibility for this position will be provided during the recruiting and interview process.

Benefits at VF Corporation

You can review a general overview of each benefit program offered, including this year's medical plan rates on and by clicking … Detailed information on your benefits will be provided during the hiring process. Please note, our hiring ranges are determined and built from market pay data. In determining the specific compensation for this position, we comply with all local, state, and federal laws.

Equal Employment Opportunity

At VF, we value a diverse, inclusive workforce and we provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees. All qualified applicants for employment will be considered without regard to an individual’s race, color, sex, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, marital status, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, genetic information, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local laws. If you require accommodations during the application process, please contact us at VF will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals to the extent required by applicable law. Pursuant to all applicable local Fair Chance Ordinance requirements, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, VF will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

VF Corporation habille les consommateurs partout dans le monde grâce à son portefeuille diversifié de marques emblématiques de style de vie, notamment Vans®, The North Face® et Timberland®. Fondée en 1899, VF est l’une des plus importantes entreprises mondiales de vêtements, de chaussures et d’accessoires. Elle exerce ses activités de façon socialement et écologiquement responsable dans de nombreuses régions du monde, catégories de produits et canaux de distribution. VF s’engage à offrir des produits novateurs aux consommateurs et à créer une valeur durable pour ses clients et ses actionnaires. VF Corporation outfits consumers around the world with its diverse portfolio of iconic lifestyle brands, including Vans®, The North Face®, and Timberland®. Founded in 1899, VF is one of the world's largest apparel, footwear and accessories companies with socially and environmentally responsible operations spanning numerous geographies, product categories, and distribution channels. VF is committed to delivering innovative products to consumers and creating long-term value for its customers and shareholders. Énoncé de vision de VF en matière de diversité VF s’engage à créer un environnement inclusif qui accueille et valorise les différences parmi tous ses associés, ses clients, ses fournisseurs et les collectivités où nous vivons et exerçons nos activités. Le succès et la croissance continus de VF sont renforcés par des initiatives qui favorisent la diversité à l’échelle mondiale. VF s’engage à offrir l’égalité des chances en matière d’emploi et à traiter ses associés et ses candidats sans discrimination fondée sur la race, la couleur, le sexe, l’âge, la provenance nationale, la religion, l’orientation sexuelle, l’identité ou l’expression de genre, l’état matrimonial, la citoyenneté, un handicap, le statut d’ancien combattant protégé, le statut VIH/sida ou tout autre motif protégé par la loi. VF s’engage à répondre aux divers besoins des personnes en situation de handicap dans des délais raisonnables, conformément aux principes d’autonomie, de dignité, d’intégration et d’égalité des chances. Pour ce faire, VF s’efforcera de cerner, de prévenir et d’éliminer les obstacles à l’accessibilité partout où cela est possible, tout en respectant les exigences en matière d’accessibilité prévues par l’ADA, la LAPHO (AODA) et toute autre réglementation provinciale, étatique ou locale applicable. VF s’engage à assurer l’accessibilité numérique, à se conformer aux Règles pour l’accessibilité des contenus Web (WCAG)2.1, niveau AA, ainsi qu’aux normes de conception accessible de l’ADA et de la LAPHO (AODA), et à toute autre réglementation applicable. Si vous avez besoin d’une mesure d’adaptation ou si vous avez des questions concernant cet énoncé, veuillez transmettre votre demande à VF Diversity Vision Statement VF is committed to creating an inclusive environment that welcomes and values the differences among all of our associates, customers, suppliers and the communities in which we live and conduct business. The continued success and growth of VF is enhanced through initiatives that promote diversity throughout VF around the world. VF is committed to providing equal opportunities in employment, and treating our VF associates and VF applicants without discrimination on the basis of their race, color, gender, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, citizenship, disability, protected veteran status, HIV/AIDS status, or any other legally protected basis. VF is committed to meeting the diverse needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner that is consistent with the principles of independence, dignity, integration and equality of opportunity, and will do so by striving to identify, prevent and remove barriers to accessibility wherever possible as well as by meeting the accessibility requirements under the ADA, AODA, and other applicable state, local or provincial regulations. If you need an accommodation or have any questions regarding this statement, please send your request to