AI Engineer, Design Innovation

WHO WE ARE:
Headquartered in Southern California, Skechers—the Comfort Technology Company®—has spent over 30 years helping men, women, and kids everywhere look and feel good. Comfort innovation is at the core of everything we do, driving the development of stylish, high-quality products at a great value. From our diverse footwear collections to our expanding range of apparel and accessories, Skechers is a complete lifestyle brand.
ABOUT THE ROLE:
Skechers Technology team is enabling our business with AI through the development and adoption of private, proprietary AI technologies. The AI Engineer - Design Innovation is a key role within the Skechers organization and will be central to developing AI-powered design tools and technologies specifically for Skechers' Design team. The AI Engineer - Design Innovation will spearhead the development of cutting-edge AI tools tailored for footwear and apparel design workflows. This role is at the forefront of integrating graphic designing, image modeling, and generative AI technologies to revolutionize how our designers create and visualize products. While reporting to IT, this position will be 100% dedicated to supporting the Design team, working closely with designers to understand their needs and translating them into innovative AI-powered solutions. The AI Engineer will collaborate with high-velocity software engineering teams and coordinate across various departments to bring design-focused AI capabilities to new heights. The candidate should be an experienced and motivated technologist who possesses a unique balance of technical depth, creative problem-solving skills, and strong interpersonal abilities.

WHAT YOU'LL DO:

• Lead the design, development, and deployment of AI-powered design tools, integrating with cutting-edge image generation models including OpenAI (GPT-Image-1, DALL-E 3), Google Gemini 2.5 Flash, FLUX 1.1 Pro Ultra, Stable Diffusion 3.5, SeedDream v4, and Ideogram 3.0 for footwear and apparel automation.
• Integrate and optimize multiple AI APIs with a "Lego-building" approach - viewing APIs as building blocks to create proprietary solutions that don't exist off-the-shelf, specifically for fashion and footwear design applications.
• Develop and maintain multi-API orchestration including Google Gemini, OpenAI, and Fal.ai integrations with advanced prompt engineering techniques to enhance design workflows and maintain brand consistency while generating new designs.
• Build scalable image generation pipelines for batch processing handling hundreds of concurrent requests, with intelligent routing between AI providers based on task requirements using cloud services (AWS, Vercel, Replit, or equivalent platforms).
• Create and deploy web applications using JavaScript/TypeScript, React/Next.js, and Tailwind CSS components to provide designers with intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces for AI-powered design tools, collaborating on frontend development.
• Coordinate with cross-functional teams as the sole software developer among footwear designers, graphic artists, and merchandisers - bringing significant autonomy and creative freedom to integrate AI solutions tailored for creative workflows.
• Develop automated systems for CMF variations, component swapping, style transfer, and other design workflows with queue management solutions for handling high-volume AI generation tasks.
•  Design and implement database solutions using PostgreSQL with Drizzle ORM for storing design assets, API response caching, user data, and design iteration histories with efficient file storage.
• Execute against the product backlog efficiently, rapidly prototyping and experimenting with emerging models to multiply creative team output through intelligent automation.
•  Implement quality validation, automatic retry logic, and brand consistency checks to ensure all design-focused requirements are met while managing API rate limits and costs across multiple providers.
• Stay up to date with the latest advancements in generative AI from Google, OpenAI, ByteDance, and emerging ai models / companies, proposing and implementing innovative AI solutions based on real team needs.
• Other duties as assigned.

WHAT YOU'LL BRING:

• Proficiency with generative AI, including hosted LLMs (Claude, OpenAI, Gemini), LLM API integration, advanced prompt engineering techniques, and most importantly image generation models such as Stable Diffusion and Imagen.
• Strong programming skills in Python for AI applications (with frameworks like LangChain), and JavaScript/TypeScript for web development.
• Experience with modern JavaScript Frameworks like React/Next.js or Flutter for building designer-facing applications with understanding of UX patterns and mobile-first design principles is preferred.
• Strong skills in API development (REST/GraphQL), database design (SQL/NoSQL including MongoDB), and integration with design tools.
• Proficiency with general AWS services (Lambda, API Gateway, S3, etc) is required while experience with Docker containerization and orchestration systems (ECS/EKS/Fargate) is a plus.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and development tools including Git, Jenkins, and Postman.
• Experience with file storage, CDN management for large design files, batch processing systems, and queue management for AI tasks.
• Proficiency in Figma/Sketch, understanding of design tool ecosystems, design systems, and component libraries.
• Understanding of image generation pipelines, design workflow optimization, and creative team collaboration.
• Experience with design tools, agile methodologies, and project management tools like JIRA.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with high degree of self-motivation and experience with user research.
• Understanding of fashion/footwear industry trends and design processes is a huge plus.

REQUIREMENTS:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily.  The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

• B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computer Graphics, or equivalent proven years of experience.
• 5+ years of experience in software development with a focus on AI applications.
• 3+ years of experience with Python.  
• 3+ years of experience in developing REST APIs with JSON, HTTP protocol, Postman and/or curl.
• Web development experience with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and modern JS frameworks.
• Experience with AWS Lambda, API Gateway, S3, and other cloud services.
• Working knowledge of Linux, Windows, SQL and NoSQL database systems (MongoDB), and networking.
• Experience integrating with 3rd party APIs, particularly design and creative tools.
• Experience working with DevOps teams on implementing CI/CD pipelines and monitoring/alerting.
• Graphic design experience or background working closely with creative teams is highly preferred.
• Experience working directly with business facing groups outside of development is ideal.
• Experience working within an Agile team environment is ideal.
• Ability to communicate complex technical topics to creative professionals with precision and clarity.
• Ability to translate creative requirements into technical specifications accurately and effectively.

The pay range for this position is $150,000-$220,000/yr USD.

About Skechers

Skechers, a global Fortune 500® company, develops and markets a diverse range of lifestyle and performance footwear, apparel, and accessories. Serving over 180 countries and territories, Skechers connects customers to products through department and specialty stores, e-commerce and digital stores, and through our more than 5,300 Skechers retail locations.

Equal Employment Opportunity
Skechers is committed to providing a safe, inclusive, and respectful work environment. Skechers provides equal employment opportunities for all employees and applicants for employment without regard race, color, religion, gender, gender identification and expression, national origin, marital status, age, disability, genetic information, military status, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic established by local, state or federal law.

Reasonable Accommodation
Applicants for employment who require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job should request appropriate accommodation by emailing [email protected].
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each job responsibility satisfactorily.  The skills, abilities and physical demands described are representative of those duties that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities, who are otherwise qualified for the job position, to perform the essential functions.