Principal Scientist, Agentic Systems Applied Science

Who We Are

Wayfair believes everyone deserves a home they love, and that furnishing your home should be a source of fun, not anxiety. Our Applied Research organization plays a critical role in making this vision a reality by building the scientific and technical foundations that power Wayfair's most ambitious AI capabilities. We work closely with Engineering, Applied Science, Data Science, and Product teams across the company to move from research insight to production impact.

We are seeking a Principal Scientist to establish how agentic AI systems are built, evaluated, and scaled at Wayfair. This role sits within the GST + SCRT Applied Research organization and is focused on one of the most consequential open problems in applied AI: how do you build autonomous systems that can reason, plan, and act across complex supplier and supply chain workflows — reliably, safely, and at scale?

This is paradigm creation work. You will not be inheriting a playbook; you will be writing it. As Wayfair's technical authority on agentic systems, you will define the architectural patterns, evaluation frameworks, and safety standards that downstream Applied Science and Engineering teams build on. Your work compounds across every autonomous system Wayfair builds next.

You'll act as the connective tissue between research, engineering, and product — translating foundational science into reusable patterns that accelerate teams across catalog, supply chain, and customer technology without requiring each to reinvent the same hard problems. This is a high-leverage role for someone who thrives at the intersection of deep technical rigor and real production stakes.

What You'll Do

• Research and prototype agentic architectures — including planning, memory, tool use, and multi-step reasoning — relevant to catalog and supply chain workflows.
• Define Wayfair's evaluation frameworks for agentic systems, moving beyond offline accuracy and A/B tests to assess reliability, safety, and business impact in non-deterministic environments.
• Establish company-wide standards for autonomy boundaries, failure modes, rollback procedures, and human-in-the-loop design — and drive adoption across technology teams.
• Build reusable agentic patterns that Applied Science and Engineering teams can adopt safely, reducing organizational debt and preventing fragmented, one-off implementations.
• Identify where agentic approaches outperform deterministic pipelines — and where they do not — serving as a system-level gate on investment decisions.
• Partner with downstream teams in Supply Chain, Search, and Customer Technology to pilot validated patterns and demonstrate measurable business impact.
• Influence platform strategy by providing input on tooling, evaluation infrastructure, and resource allocation decisions for agent development across the organization.
• Define a proactive research agenda that keeps Wayfair at the frontier of agentic AI capabilities as the field evolves.

We Are A Match Because You Have

• Deep hands-on expertise in LLM-based systems, agent architectures, and multi-step reasoning pipelines — you have built these in production, not just studied them.
• Experience designing evaluation frameworks for complex, non-deterministic AI systems, with a strong understanding of where standard metrics fall short.
• A track record of technical influence across engineering, applied science, and product organizations without requiring direct organizational authority.
• The judgment to identify when agentic approaches should not be used — and the credibility to make that call stick with senior stakeholders.
• Comfort operating in ambiguous, greenfield problem spaces where the right framework does not yet exist.
• PhD or equivalent research experience in machine learning, AI, or a related field, combined with meaningful industry experience building systems at scale.
• Strong communicator with a proven ability to translate complex research findings for technical and non-technical audiences alike.

Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities
Wayfair is fully committed to providing equal opportunities for all individuals, including individuals with disabilities. As part of this commitment, Wayfair will make reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of qualified individuals with disabilities, unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on business operations. If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, please let us know by completing our Accomodations for Applicants form.
 
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About Wayfair Inc.
Wayfair is one of the world’s largest online destinations for the home. Whether you work in our global headquarters in Boston, or in our warehouses or offices throughout the world, we’re reinventing the way people shop for their homes. Through our commitment to industry-leading technology and creative problem-solving, we are confident that Wayfair will be home to the most rewarding work of your career. If you’re looking for rapid growth, constant learning, and dynamic challenges, then you’ll find that amazing career opportunities are knocking.

No matter who you are, Wayfair is a place you can call home. We’re a community of innovators, risk-takers, and trailblazers who celebrate our differences, and know that our unique perspectives make us stronger, smarter, and well-positioned for success. We value and rely on the collective voices of our employees, customers, community, and suppliers to help guide us as we build a better Wayfair – and world – for all. Every voice, every perspective matters. That’s why we’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Your personal data is processed in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Notice (https://www.wayfair.com/careers/privacy). If you have any questions or wish to exercise your rights under applicable privacy and data protection laws, please contact us at dataprotectionofficer@wayfair.com.