Director, Core Digital Platforms & AI Tech

Shake Shack; Atlanta (GA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Weekly Pay and Performance bonuses

Shake Shack Meal Discounts

Exclusive corporate discounts for trav

Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance

Employer Paid Life and Disability Ins

401k Plan with Company Match

Paid Time Off

Paid Parental Leave

Access to Employee Assistance Program

Pre-Tax Commuter and Parking Benefits

Flexible Spending and Dependent Care 1

Development and Growth Opportunities

Eligibility criteria applies

Job summary

Shake Shack is seeking a Director of Core Digital Platforms to own and scale our foundational digital systems, including Shack Stack, Operator App, Kiosk Platform, and AI Platform. You’ll report to the VP Digital Technology & AI Engineering and lead a team to ensure reliability, security, and performance across guest experiences.

You’ll shape platform roadmaps with vendors such as Okta, Square, FreedomPay, and Kount, drive observability, uptime, and cost-to-value, and collaborate with Product,

Qualifications

• 10+ years in technology leadership roles managing mission-critical platforms in high-scale consumer, digital commerce, or QSR environments.
• Strong technical acumen in microservices, APIs, identity, payments, fraud, and cloud (AWS) architectures.
• Demonstrated success managing vendor partnerships, negotiations, and influencing product roadmaps.
• Proven ability to hire, coach, develop, and grow high-performing teams.
• Ability to communicate effectively with executives and lead change at scale.

Responsibilities

• Set and communicate the vision and strategy for Shake Shack’s core digital platforms; align roadmaps to business growth and guest experience goals.
• Lead, mentor, and motivate a high‑performing team of Technical Platform Managers overseeing core systems including Shack Stack, Payments, OMS, Kiosk, Fraud, Identity, and Observability. Serve as the Technical Platform Owner for AI Platforms, providing strategic and hands‑on leadership to drive performance, reliability, and innovation.
• Serve as the executive owner of foundational platform architecture, ensuring reliability, scalability, and seamless integration across internal APIs and partner systems.
• Influence and manage strategic vendor relationships (e.g., Okta, JTech/Sinch, Square, FreedomPay, Kount), ensuring joint accountability, roadmap alignment, and measurable outcomes.
• Define and drive reliability and resilience standards - uptime SLAs, MTTR, incident response playbooks, error budgets, observability frameworks.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Digital Engineering, Restaurant Tech, and AI engineering teams to enable new digital capabilities and eliminate friction across the guest journey.
• Communicate platform health, performance insights, risk, and investment decisions with clarity to executive and operational stakeholders.

Skills

Technology leadership

Microservices

APIs

Identity

Payments

Fraud

Cloud AWS

Vendor management

Team coaching

Strategic thinking

Tools

Shack Stack

Operator App

Kiosk Platform

AI Platform

Job description

Shake Shack is seeking a Director of Core Digital Platforms to own and scale our foundational digital systems, including Shack Stack, Operator App, Kiosk Platform, and AI Platform. You’ll report to the VP Digital Technology & AI Engineering and lead a team to ensure reliability, security, and performance across guest experiences.

You’ll shape platform roadmaps with vendors such as Okta, Square, FreedomPay, and Kount, drive observability, uptime, and cost-to-value, and collaborate with Product,