Staff Software Engineer (Data Platform)

Toast; Ireland; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited Vacation

Professional Development Reimbursement

Job summary

Toast in Dublin is hiring a Staff Software Engineer to join the AAP data platform team. You will lead the delivery of platform capabilities powering Toast’s analytics and AI/ML features, while doing hands-on work with Kotlin/Java, Spark, Iceberg, and streaming infra.

You will mentor engineers, drive architectural decisions, and collaborate with cross-team partners to scale the platform for 170,000+ restaurant customers. This role emphasizes building reliable, scalable data foundations.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in software engineering with data platforms or distributed systems.
• Experience leading multi-team projects and mentoring engineers.
• Hands-on with streaming infrastructure (Kafka, Pulsar) and cloud-native data platforms on AWS.
• Strong Java or Kotlin and Spark/Iceberg expertise.

Responsibilities

• Lead the delivery of major data platform capabilities from design through production rollout.
• Mentor engineers and raise the bar on engineering practices across the team.
• Own architectural decisions for streaming, storage, and serving components.
• Collaborate with product and engineering partners to drive platform adoption.

Job description

• We are hiring a Staff Software Engineer to join our data platform (AAP) team in Dublin
• The AAP team owns the foundational data infrastructure that powers Toast’s analytics products and AI/ML capabilities: real-time streaming pipelines, a cloud-native data lakehouse, feature serving for ML-driven product experiences, and the infrastructure that enables product teams across Toast to build intelligent, data-driven experiences for our 170,000+ restaurant customers
• We are in the middle of a significant platform evolution: migrating to Apache Iceberg, standing up a new Feature Store, conducting Databricks evaluations, and scaling our streaming infrastructure to meet the demands of a rapidly growing business
• As a Staff Software Engineer, you’ll be the technical lead for major parts of this evolution
• You’ll design and lead the delivery of platform capabilities that several teams depend on, doing deep hands-on work and making design calls that account for streaming, storage, serving, and the teams consuming them
• You’ll be the go-to expert in your area of the platform, working with product and engineering partners inside and outside our line of business
• You’ll make the engineers around you better through mentorship, design reviews, and the example you set
• Success looks like other engineering teams moving faster because of the platform you help build
• Lead the delivery of significant data platform capabilities, from early design through production rollout, across the AAP team and the teams that depend on it
• Work hands-on with Kotlin/Java, Spark, Iceberg, and our streaming infrastructure, diagnosing performance, reasoning through trade-offs, and writing the code that sets the pattern for others
• Anticipate how requirements will change and design systems that can absorb that change, exploring the problem fully before settling on a solution
• Evolve the platform’s API surfaces so that engineers across Toast can self-service - adoption and ease-of-use are part of the job
• Lead efforts that measurably improve platform quality, reliability, and observability for the teams and customers who depend on it
• Mentor other engineers and raise the bar on engineering practices across the organisation
• Use AI tooling as a genuine force multiplier in your day-to-day work and help the team do the same
• Our tech stack:
• Our data platform runs on AWS and spans Apache Iceberg for table format and lakehouse architecture, Apache Kafka and Pulsar for real-time streaming, Apache Spark for data processing, and DynamoDB and Postgres for operational data stores
• We are migrating from legacy ETL patterns toward a modern, cloud-native data lakehouse and building out Feature Store capabilities to power ML-driven product experiences
• Our backend services are primarily Kotlin and Java

Benefits

• Peer and company recognition programs
• Unlimited Vacation
• Sabbatical opportunity after five years
• Professional Development Reimbursement Program
• Commitment to Employee Wellness through resources such as a quarterly Wellness Stipend
• Various peer and company recognition programs
• 401(k) and matching
• Medical, Dental, & Vision Coverage
• Mental Health Benefits
• Subsidized backup childcare

Experience building internal platforms and developer-facing abstractions - you think about your platform’s users as carefully as product engineers think about end users5+ years in software engineering with a strong focus on data platforms or distributed systems, including technical leadership of projects involving more than one teamExperience with streaming infrastructure (Apache Kafka, Apache Pulsar, or similar) and cloud-native data platforms on AWSDatabricks experience is a bonus but we care more that you understand what’s running underneath itProficiency in Java, Kotlin or other object-oriented languageStrong hands-on expertise in Apache Spark and Apache Iceberg (or similar)