Chris Hickman
@chrishickman
Backend engineer building agentic AI shopping systems at Walmart scale.
United StatesWhat I'm looking for
I’m a backend engineer with 3+ years shipping production systems at Walmart scale, including agentic AI features for Sparky: Walmart’s AI shopping assistant serving 1M+ daily customers. I specialize in Java/Spring Boot microservices and distributed systems, and I own features end-to-end—from design through production release—with measurable revenue impact.
At Sparky, I led end-to-end engineering for the Essentials Experience, shipping to a 1M+ DAU production platform and driving Add-To-Cart by 3.8% through agentic product discovery. I also reduced p99 latency by 75% by eliminating redundant AI router calls, built monetized AI-driven Sponsored Products carousel integrations, and strengthened CI/CD with E2E, linting, and functional test coverage to improve production readiness.
Experience
Work history, roles, and key accomplishments
Led end-to-end engineering for Sparky AI’s Essentials Experience, shipping to a 1M+ daily active users platform and driving a 3.8% lift in Add-To-Cart via agentic product discovery. Reduced p99 latency by 75% by eliminating redundant AI router calls and improved release readiness by adding end-to-end, linting, and functional test coverage to CI/CD.
Enhanced and maintained Walmart Global Tech product setup pipeline, improving catalog integrity through system design and test-driven development for Matching/Normalization. Modernized mission-critical Product Merge and Split APIs with zero-downtime migration from Java 8 to Java 21/Spring Boot 3.x using shadow mode, and built Kafka-based event-driven microservices processing 1M+ product changes da
Education
Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework
Clarkson University
Bachelor of Science, Computer Science
Grade: GPA: 3.86
Earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a strong foundation in algorithms, software design, and OOP.
NCCC
Associate of Applied Science, Graphic Art and Design
Grade: GPA: 3.944
Activities and societies: President of the Art Club for two semesters.
Earned an AAS in Graphic Art and Design, focusing on design principles, UI/UX concepts, and the Adobe Suite.
Tech stack
Software and tools used professionally
Availability
Location
United StatesAuthorized to work in
Website
chrishful.devPortfolio
chrishful.devJob categories
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