Job Description

We are seeking a Technical Program Manager, Principal Sr. to lead Nordstrom’s enterprise initiative on AI-native developer productivity — fundamentally changing how our technical organizations build, operate, and ship software in an era of AI-assisted development.

This senior-most individual contributor role sits at the convergence of AI tooling strategy, developer experience, and organizational transformation. You will define what “AI-native” ways of working mean for Nordstrom’s technology organization — and then systematically build the research foundation, strategy, tooling, training, and measurement infrastructure to make them real at scale across technical organizations.

This is not a role for managing programs at arm’s length. It is a role for someone who researches the frontier of AI coding tools, incubates ideas hands-on, builds enabling capabilities, drives adoption across the enterprise, and closes the loop with rigorous impact measurement. You will operate with SVP/VP-level visibility, contribute to and implement Nordstrom’s central AI Native WoW initiative, and represent the forefront of how technical talent works at this company.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Research & Thought Leadership

• Continuously monitor and evaluate the frontier of AI-native developer tooling — including coding agents (e.g., Claude Code), context management strategies (e.g., MCP, RAG over codebases), agentic harnesses, and code generation workflows.
• Incubate and prototype emerging ideas through structured experiments, translating cutting-edge techniques into Nordstrom-relevant proof of concepts before recommending broader adoption.
• Synthesize research into point-of-view documents and strategy artifacts that inform investment decisions and executive prioritization across the AI, Platform & Data organization.
• Represent Nordstrom’s developer productivity perspective in external technology communities, vendor partnerships, and cross-industry forums.

Strategy & Program Design

• Define and own the strategy for AI-native developer productivity at Nordstrom — spanning tooling, process redesign, skills development, and organizational enablement.
• Author strategy documents that connect the developer productivity vision to business outcomes, platform architecture priorities, and Nordstrom’s broader AI transformation agenda.
• Partner with VP and SVP-level technology leaders to shape investment priorities, program charters, and build/partner/buy decisions related to AI developer tooling.
• Contribute to Nordstrom’s central AI enablement initiative, ensuring developer productivity strategy aligns with and amplifies enterprise-wide AI adoption efforts.

Tooling & Capability Development

• Identify gaps in existing tooling, context infrastructure, or workflow integration that limit developer productivity; drive the build or adoption of capabilities to close those gaps.
• Collaborate with platform and engineering teams to design and deliver internal tools, integrations, and infrastructure (e.g., MCP servers, agent scaffolding, IDE integrations) that enable AI-native development practices.
• Establish standards and reference architectures for AI-assisted development workflows that engineering teams can adopt with minimal friction.

Training, Enablement & Adoption

• Design and develop training materials, playbooks, and self-service resources that equip engineers at all levels to adopt AI-native ways of working.
• Facilitate workshops, lunch-and-learns, and structured cohort experiences that build hands-on fluency with AI coding tools and agentic workflows.
• Build and activate an internal community of AI-native practitioners who champion adoption, share discoveries, and accelerate peer learning across the engineering organization.
• Partner with engineering leadership and HRBPs to embed AI-native practices into onboarding, career development frameworks, and team rituals.

Metrics, Measurement & Impact

• Define the measurement framework for AI-native developer productivity — identifying the right leading and lagging indicators across velocity, quality, developer experience, and cost efficiency.
• Build and maintain dashboards and observability tooling that make productivity impact visible to both practitioners and senior leadership.
• Establish feedback loops between tooling usage, developer experience signals, and business outcomes; use data to continuously refine program strategy and prioritization.
• Report program progress and impact to VP/SVP-level stakeholders with clarity, rigor, and actionable recommendations.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Stakeholder Alignment

• Build and leverage a broad