OPT Principal Software Engineer Jobs
Principal Software Engineer jobs are among the most OPT-friendly senior roles in tech. Most positions qualify as specialty occupations under H-1B visa standards, making OPT-to-H-1B transitions straightforward. STEM OPT extensions apply if your degree is in computer science, software engineering, or a related field, giving you up to three years of authorized work.
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As a Principal Engineer in Walmart’s Fraud and Risk platform, you will define and drive the architecture of next-generation fraud and risk prevention systems at massive scale. You will lead the design of platforms that combine real-time decisioning, entity intelligence, agentic AI, and human-in-the-loop workflows.
This role requires deep technical leadership, owning architecture across systems and enabling teams to build scalable, intelligent, and explainable fraud prevention platforms.
About Team: The Inkiru team's mission is to detect and prevent Fraud in real time and enable a safe shopping experience for all our customers online and in-store. We are a team of passionate Engineers, Data scientists and Product managers who love to challenge each other but work together to build a platform to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. As an engineer on the team, you will help build systems that can process data at the scale of Walmart to derive insights in milliseconds that power lightning-fast detection of fraudsters. You will have the opportunity to work closely with our data scientists, Product Managers, business partners and systems engineers to drive the definition and implementation of platform services, applications and analytics tools for our predictive intelligence platform.
What you'll do:
Define Architecture for Fraud & Risk Platforms
- Lead system design for real-time fraud detection and policy enforcement
- Architect entity resolution and graph intelligence systems
- Design agentic AI platforms for automated fraud analysis and reasoning
- Shape case management and orchestration systems for investigations
Drive AI-Native System Design
- Define patterns for integrating ML models and AI agents into production
- Lead development of explainability frameworks for fraud decisions
- Enable scalable systems for model deployment, evaluation, and iteration
Own Cross-System Strategy
- Align architecture across Gateway, Platform, and Data Science teams
- Define integration patterns for real-time and batch systems
- Ensure systems meet requirements for latency, reliability, and scalability
Lead Technical Direction
- Drive architectural standards, design patterns, and engineering best practices
- Guide teams through complex technical decisions and tradeoffs
- Establish long-term technical vision aligned with business goals
Mentor & Influence
- Mentor senior and staff engineers across teams
- Influence hiring, engineering culture, and technical excellence
- Act as a thought leader in fraud, risk, and AI-driven systems
What you'll bring:
Proven track record of architecting and scaling large distributed systems
- Deep expertise in system design, platform engineering, and microservices architecture
- Strong experience with real-time decision systems and high-throughput architectures
- Experience architecting systems that operationalize ML models at scale
- Strong understanding of ML-driven decisioning systems and tradeoffs (rules vs models)
- Familiarity with fraud/risk systems, identity systems, or trust & safety domains
- Experience with entity resolution, graph systems, or behavioral analytics (strong plus)
- Ability to drive alignment and influence across organizations
- Strong technical judgment with a focus on long-term scalability and maintainability
About Walmart Global Tech
Imagine working in an environment where one line of code can make life easier for hundreds of millions of people. That’s what we do at Walmart Global Tech. We’re a team of software engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity experts and service professionals within the world’s leading retailer who make an epic impact and are at the forefront of the next retail disruption. People are why we innovate, and people power our innovations.
We are people-led and tech-empowered. We train our team in the skillsets of the future and bring in experts like you to help us grow. We have roles for those chasing their first opportunity as well as those looking for the opportunity that will define their career. Here, you can kickstart a great career in tech, gain new skills and experience for virtually every industry, or leverage your expertise to innovate at scale, impact millions and reimagine the future of retail.
Walmart’s culture is a competitive advantage, and it’s fostered by being together. Working together in person allows us to collaborate, align quickly and innovate with greater speed. We use our campuses to create purposeful connection rooted in deepening understanding and investing in the development of our associates.
Our hubs: Walmart is a global company with offices across the United States and around the world. Our global headquarters is in Bentonville, Arkansas, with primary hubs in the San Francisco Bay area and New York/New Jersey.
Benefits:
Beyond our great compensation package, you can receive incentive awards for your performance. Other great perks include 401(k) match, stock purchase plan, paid maternity and parental leave, PTO, multiple health plans, and much more.
Equal Opportunity Employer:
Walmart, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer – By Choice. We believe we are best equipped to help our associates, customers, and the communities we serve live better when we really know them. That means understanding, respecting, and valuing unique styles, experiences, identities, ideas, and opinions – while being inclusive of all people.
The above information has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed in the role. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all responsibilities and qualifications required of employees assigned to this job. The full Job Description can be made available as part of the hiring process.
At Walmart, we offer competitive pay as well as performance-based bonus awards and other great benefits for a happier mind, body, and wallet. Health benefits include medical, vision and dental coverage. Financial benefits include 401(k), stock purchase and company-paid life insurance. Paid time off benefits include PTO (including sick leave), parental leave, family care leave, bereavement, jury duty, and voting. Other benefits include short-term and long-term disability, company discounts, Military Leave Pay, adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, and more. You will also receive PTO and/or PPTO that can be used for vacation, sick leave, holidays, or other purposes. The amount you receive depends on your job classification and length of employment. It will meet or exceed the requirements of paid sick leave laws, where applicable. For information about PTO, see https://one.walmart.com/notices. Live Better U is a Walmart-paid education benefit program for full-time and part-time associates in Walmart and Sam's Club facilities. Programs range from high school completion to bachelor's degrees, including English Language Learning and short-form certificates. Tuition, books, and fees are completely paid for by Walmart.
Eligibility requirements apply to some benefits and may depend on your job classification and length of employment. Benefits are subject to change and may be subject to a specific plan or program terms.
For information about benefits and eligibility, see One.Walmart.
The annual salary range for this position is $143,000.00 - $286,000.00 Additional compensation includes annual or quarterly performance bonuses. Additional compensation for certain positions may also include:
- Stock
Minimum Qualifications
Outlined below are the required minimum qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no minimum qualifications.
Option 1: Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or related area and 5 years’ experience in software engineering or related area.
Option 2: 7 years’ experience in software engineering or related area.
Preferred Qualifications
Outlined below are the optional preferred qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no preferred qualifications.
Master’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or related area and 3 years' experience in software engineering or related area. We value candidates with a background in creating inclusive digital experiences, demonstrating knowledge in implementing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standards, assistive technologies, and integrating digital accessibility seamlessly. The ideal candidate would have knowledge of accessibility best practices and join us as we continue to create accessible products and services following Walmart’s accessibility standards and guidelines for supporting an inclusive culture.
Primary Location
809 11th Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94089-4731, United States of America
Walmart and its subsidiaries are committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace and has a no tolerance policy regarding the use of illegal drugs and alcohol on the job. This policy applies to all employees and aims to create a safe and productive work environment.
Position Summary
As a Principal Engineer in Walmart’s Fraud and Risk platform, you will define and drive the architecture of next-generation fraud and risk prevention systems at massive scale. You will lead the design of platforms that combine real-time decisioning, entity intelligence, agentic AI, and human-in-the-loop workflows.
This role requires deep technical leadership, owning architecture across systems and enabling teams to build scalable, intelligent, and explainable fraud prevention platforms.
About Team: The Inkiru team's mission is to detect and prevent Fraud in real time and enable a safe shopping experience for all our customers online and in-store. We are a team of passionate Engineers, Data scientists and Product managers who love to challenge each other but work together to build a platform to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. As an engineer on the team, you will help build systems that can process data at the scale of Walmart to derive insights in milliseconds that power lightning-fast detection of fraudsters. You will have the opportunity to work closely with our data scientists, Product Managers, business partners and systems engineers to drive the definition and implementation of platform services, applications and analytics tools for our predictive intelligence platform.
What you'll do:
Define Architecture for Fraud & Risk Platforms
- Lead system design for real-time fraud detection and policy enforcement
- Architect entity resolution and graph intelligence systems
- Design agentic AI platforms for automated fraud analysis and reasoning
- Shape case management and orchestration systems for investigations
Drive AI-Native System Design
- Define patterns for integrating ML models and AI agents into production
- Lead development of explainability frameworks for fraud decisions
- Enable scalable systems for model deployment, evaluation, and iteration
Own Cross-System Strategy
- Align architecture across Gateway, Platform, and Data Science teams
- Define integration patterns for real-time and batch systems
- Ensure systems meet requirements for latency, reliability, and scalability
Lead Technical Direction
- Drive architectural standards, design patterns, and engineering best practices
- Guide teams through complex technical decisions and tradeoffs
- Establish long-term technical vision aligned with business goals
Mentor & Influence
- Mentor senior and staff engineers across teams
- Influence hiring, engineering culture, and technical excellence
- Act as a thought leader in fraud, risk, and AI-driven systems
What you'll bring:
Proven track record of architecting and scaling large distributed systems
- Deep expertise in system design, platform engineering, and microservices architecture
- Strong experience with real-time decision systems and high-throughput architectures
- Experience architecting systems that operationalize ML models at scale
- Strong understanding of ML-driven decisioning systems and tradeoffs (rules vs models)
- Familiarity with fraud/risk systems, identity systems, or trust & safety domains
- Experience with entity resolution, graph systems, or behavioral analytics (strong plus)
- Ability to drive alignment and influence across organizations
- Strong technical judgment with a focus on long-term scalability and maintainability
About Walmart Global Tech
Imagine working in an environment where one line of code can make life easier for hundreds of millions of people. That’s what we do at Walmart Global Tech. We’re a team of software engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity experts and service professionals within the world’s leading retailer who make an epic impact and are at the forefront of the next retail disruption. People are why we innovate, and people power our innovations.
We are people-led and tech-empowered. We train our team in the skillsets of the future and bring in experts like you to help us grow. We have roles for those chasing their first opportunity as well as those looking for the opportunity that will define their career. Here, you can kickstart a great career in tech, gain new skills and experience for virtually every industry, or leverage your expertise to innovate at scale, impact millions and reimagine the future of retail.
Walmart’s culture is a competitive advantage, and it’s fostered by being together. Working together in person allows us to collaborate, align quickly and innovate with greater speed. We use our campuses to create purposeful connection rooted in deepening understanding and investing in the development of our associates.
Our hubs: Walmart is a global company with offices across the United States and around the world. Our global headquarters is in Bentonville, Arkansas, with primary hubs in the San Francisco Bay area and New York/New Jersey.
Benefits:
Beyond our great compensation package, you can receive incentive awards for your performance. Other great perks include 401(k) match, stock purchase plan, paid maternity and parental leave, PTO, multiple health plans, and much more.
Equal Opportunity Employer:
Walmart, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer – By Choice. We believe we are best equipped to help our associates, customers, and the communities we serve live better when we really know them. That means understanding, respecting, and valuing unique styles, experiences, identities, ideas, and opinions – while being inclusive of all people.
The above information has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed in the role. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all responsibilities and qualifications required of employees assigned to this job. The full Job Description can be made available as part of the hiring process.
At Walmart, we offer competitive pay as well as performance-based bonus awards and other great benefits for a happier mind, body, and wallet. Health benefits include medical, vision and dental coverage. Financial benefits include 401(k), stock purchase and company-paid life insurance. Paid time off benefits include PTO (including sick leave), parental leave, family care leave, bereavement, jury duty, and voting. Other benefits include short-term and long-term disability, company discounts, Military Leave Pay, adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, and more. You will also receive PTO and/or PPTO that can be used for vacation, sick leave, holidays, or other purposes. The amount you receive depends on your job classification and length of employment. It will meet or exceed the requirements of paid sick leave laws, where applicable. For information about PTO, see https://one.walmart.com/notices. Live Better U is a Walmart-paid education benefit program for full-time and part-time associates in Walmart and Sam's Club facilities. Programs range from high school completion to bachelor's degrees, including English Language Learning and short-form certificates. Tuition, books, and fees are completely paid for by Walmart.
Eligibility requirements apply to some benefits and may depend on your job classification and length of employment. Benefits are subject to change and may be subject to a specific plan or program terms.
For information about benefits and eligibility, see One.Walmart.
The annual salary range for this position is $143,000.00 - $286,000.00 Additional compensation includes annual or quarterly performance bonuses. Additional compensation for certain positions may also include:
- Stock
Minimum Qualifications
Outlined below are the required minimum qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no minimum qualifications.
Option 1: Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or related area and 5 years’ experience in software engineering or related area.
Option 2: 7 years’ experience in software engineering or related area.
Preferred Qualifications
Outlined below are the optional preferred qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no preferred qualifications.
Master’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, computer information systems, software engineering, or related area and 3 years' experience in software engineering or related area. We value candidates with a background in creating inclusive digital experiences, demonstrating knowledge in implementing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standards, assistive technologies, and integrating digital accessibility seamlessly. The ideal candidate would have knowledge of accessibility best practices and join us as we continue to create accessible products and services following Walmart’s accessibility standards and guidelines for supporting an inclusive culture.
Primary Location
809 11th Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94089-4731, United States of America
Walmart and its subsidiaries are committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace and has a no tolerance policy regarding the use of illegal drugs and alcohol on the job. This policy applies to all employees and aims to create a safe and productive work environment.
See all 124+ OPT Principal Software Engineer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new OPT Principal Software Engineer Jobs.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding OPT Sponsorship as a Principal Software Engineer
Lead with your OPT timeline upfront
Principal-level hiring moves slowly. Tell recruiters your OPT end date and STEM extension eligibility in your first message. It saves both sides time and signals you understand the sponsorship process, which matters at this level.
Target companies with established H-1B pipelines
Companies that have sponsored dozens of H-1B visa petitions are far more likely to sponsor again. Look for employers with legal teams experienced in immigration. Startups under 50 people rarely have the infrastructure to support senior visa sponsorship.
Frame your seniority as sponsorship ROI
Employers weigh sponsorship cost against retention risk. Principal engineers represent multi-year investments in leadership and architecture. Emphasize your scope of impact clearly so hiring managers can justify the sponsorship internally to legal and finance teams.
Use your STEM OPT extension strategically
A STEM extension gives you 24 additional months after your initial 12-month OPT period. That buffer covers two H-1B lottery cycles, which is critical for senior roles where offer timelines and lottery registration windows may not align perfectly.
Get clarity on the H-1B cap-exempt option
Universities, nonprofit research institutions, and government labs are cap-exempt H-1B employers. As a Principal Engineer, these organizations offer competitive roles and can sponsor year-round without lottery risk, which is worth exploring alongside private-sector opportunities.
Prepare a concise sponsorship FAQ for offers
When you receive an offer, HR teams often have basic questions about OPT. Having a one-page summary explaining your current status, extension timeline, and what H-1B sponsorship requires from the employer speeds up the legal review considerably.
Principal Software Engineer OPT: Frequently Asked Questions
Can I work as a Principal Software Engineer on OPT?
Yes, if your degree is in a qualifying STEM field such as computer science or software engineering. Principal Software Engineer roles consistently meet the specialty occupation standard, which requires a bachelor's degree or higher in a specific technical discipline. That alignment makes OPT authorization and future H-1B sponsorship straightforward for this job title.
Do Principal Software Engineer roles typically qualify for STEM OPT extension?
Yes. If your underlying degree is on the STEM designated degree program list, Principal Software Engineer positions almost always satisfy the practical training requirement because the role directly applies engineering and computer science knowledge. Your DSO at your university confirms eligibility, but this job title rarely presents issues with STEM OPT extension approval.
How competitive is the job market for OPT students at the Principal Engineer level?
Principal-level roles require eight or more years of experience and demonstrated leadership, so the candidate pool is smaller than for mid-level positions. OPT students who have progressed to this level through U.S. work history or strong international experience are genuinely competitive. You can browse Principal Software Engineer roles open to OPT candidates on Migrate Mate.
What happens to my OPT status if my Principal Engineer offer falls through after I resign from my current employer?
You have a 60-day unemployment grace period during OPT. At the Principal level, job searches can take two to four months, which means the grace period may not be enough buffer. Avoid resigning before a written offer is in hand, and start your search early so you have overlap between your current role and the new one.
Do I need to find an employer willing to sponsor H-1B before accepting a Principal Software Engineer role on OPT?
Not immediately, but you should confirm sponsorship willingness before accepting. OPT authorizes work independently of H-1B, so you can start the role on OPT. However, if the employer won't commit to H-1B sponsorship and your OPT period ends before you secure another status, you'll lose work authorization. Clarify sponsorship intent during the offer stage.