Job Description

AI Engineer

This position is hybrid working 3 days a week from our Legacy West Support Cener located in Plano Texas.

About Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc.

At SBH, our purpose is to inspire a more colorful, confident, and welcoming world. We are the leader in professional hair color, selling and distributing professional beauty supplies across 11 countries through our Sally Beauty and Beauty Systems Group businesses. Sally Beauty offers products for hair color, hair care, nails, and skin care to retail customers looking for salon quality products at a value price. Beauty Systems Group, branded as Cosmo Prof or Armstrong McCall stores, along with its direct sales consultants, sell professionally branded products intended for use and resale by salons to retail consumers.

About the role

You will work within our enterprise AI governance framework — collaborating with business stakeholders, data engineers, and platform teams — to deliver scalable, secure, and production-ready AI applications. From LLM-powered workflows to agentic automation pipelines, you will play a pivotal role in shaping how Sally Beauty leverages generative AI.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy AI/ML models and generative AI solutions into production environments using Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, and AKS-based microservice architectures.

• Build and maintain LLM-powered applications including prompt engineering frameworks, RAG pipelines, agent orchestration, and MCP (Model Context Protocol) server integrations.

• Collaborate with stakeholders to translate business requirements into AI proof-of-concept (POC) builds and production-ready features, including tooling for marketing, supply chain, and retail operations.

• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines for AI workloads using GitHub Actions and ArgoCD, adhering to enterprise AI governance, security, and SDLC standards.

• Implement responsible AI practices including model evaluation, bias detection, hallucination mitigation, observability, and audit logging across all AI services.

• Partner with security and infrastructure teams to ensure AI systems comply with Zero Trust principles, data privacy requirements, and enterprise identity standards via Entra ID and Azure Key Vault.

• Contribute to internal AI sandbox environments, enabling both professional and citizen developers to experiment with generative AI tools safely and within governance guardrails.

• Document AI solution architectures, API contracts, and integration patterns; present findings and recommendations to cross-functional teams and leadership.

Knowledge, skills & abilities requirements

• 3+ years in software engineering or data science, with at least 1 year in AI/ML engineering or applied generative AI development.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Data Science, Engineering, or a related technical field required.

• Proficiency in designing and deploying LLM-powered solutions including fine-tuning, prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and agentic frameworks such as LangChain, AutoGen, or CrewAI.

• Hands-on experience with Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI Service, and AKS-based deployments for AI workloads. Familiarity with Azure Entra ID, Key Vault, and Managed Identity for secure AI service integration.

• Strong programming skills in Python including FastAPI, Pydantic, and asyncio. Experience with REST API design, JSON schema modeling, SQL, and Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform or Bicep.

• Working knowledge of vector databases such as Qdrant, pgvector, or Weaviate and their role in semantic search and RAG architectures.

• Experience with model evaluation, A/B testing, and drift detection to maintain production model quality over time.

• Solid understanding of CI/CD practices using GitHub Actions and ArgoCD for deploying AI services in containerized environments.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders. Self-directed, ownership-oriented, and effective in cross-functional team settings.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building production LLM applications with structured outputs, tool/function calling, and multi-agent orchestration patterns.

• Familiarity with Model Context Protocol (MCP) server design patterns and building context-aware AI tool integrations.

• Prior experience in retail, CPG, or large-scale enterprise environments where AI outcomes directly impact store operations or customer experience.

• Understanding of responsible AI frameworks, AI risk management, and enterprise AI SDLC governance practices including audit trails and policy enforcement.

• Experience with AI-assisted developer tooling such as Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or Gemini CLI for accelerated development workflows.

Competencies & attributes

• Passionate Learner – inquisitive about the business; open to feedback and coaching, applies learning quickly; applies learning to improve processes and procedures, proactively shares learning with colleagues and leaders; realigning and reshaping projects

• Flexible & Agile Adapter – responsive and open to change; works well with ambiguity; adapts to new plans or directions; keeps calm under pressure; perseveres to achieve the plan/task; doesn’t dwell on the past

• Talent Builder – considers how we can create an inclusive culture; encourages input from others; invests time as an informal/formal coach or buddy; works to build a diverse team with the right skills and knowledge; looks for ways to acknowledge, motivate, and value the team

• Effective Communicator – articulates in an appropriate and accurate manner; emotionally astute while remaining authentic to own style/self; encourages others to express views and opinions; demonstrates active listening and uses probing questions; is concise and relevant with data/info

• Team Builder – references the importance of teamwork and actively demonstrates collaboration and sharing; builds and/or participates in effective teams; values the importance of inclusion and various sources of thought/input; humble when operating within a team

• Customer Focused Partner – understands internal and external customer needs; contributes to plans and actions to improve the associate and customer journey/experience; holds self and team accountable for improving the customer experience; is an advocate for the customer

• Strategic Thinker – progressive thinking with the ability to bring new ideas to life; works with others to develop progressive and cost-effective strategies; provides suggestions to improve upon continuous improvement and scalability within department; uses a broad range of data sources

• Big Picture Thinker – understands own department and how other key departments operate; adopts an inclusive approach; seeks feedback reviews progress, and adapts plans as needed; understands interdependencies with other departments

• Results Driver – effective at driving and delivering on plans; holds self and team accountable to high standard of delivery; suggests opportunities for innovation and continuous improvement; focuses on the right priorities and uses resources/time wisely; demonstrates grit and determination

• Problem Solver & Decision Maker – able to consume department/operational data to identify business; identifies, gathers, and examines the relevant information; makes recommendations and takes action to solve challenges, considers importance/impact of decisions against relevant factors

Working conditions & physical requirements

This will be a hybrid role required to be onsite at the Corporate office on specified days. The work environment generally involves everyday risks or discomforts which require normal safety precautions typical of such places as offices, meeting and training rooms, retail stores, and residences or commercial vehicles, e.g., use of safe work practices with office equipment, avoidance of trips and falls, observance of fire regulations and traffic signals, etc. The work area is adequately lighted, heated, and ventilated.

The work is sedentary; however, occasional travel to company locations may be required Typically, the employee may sit comfortably to do the work. However, there may be some walking; standing; bending; carrying of light items such as papers, files, books, small parts; using a keyboard, driving an automobile, etc. No special physical demands are required to perform the work.

Benefits

We offer a competitive salary and outstanding benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, life Insurance, paid vacation and sick days, paid holidays, tuition reimbursement and 401(k) with company match. In addition, associates of SBH may take advantage of our in-house salon with complementary services and a varied selection of food options at our corporate campus. Also, featured at our corporate campus, is both a Sally Beauty and CosmoProf Professional onsite store, where associates enjoy a great merchandise discount!

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