Director of Core Platforms — Scale Guest Experiences

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

Benefits offered by this job

Weekly pay

Meal discounts

Corporate discounts (travel, tech, etc

Job summary

Shake Shack is seeking a Director of Core Digital Platforms to define and scale foundational platforms such as Shack Stack, the Operator App, and AI-driven services. You will own platform reliability, performance, and security while guiding a team of Technical Platform Managers to deliver scalable digital experiences across guest journeys.

You will report to the VP Digital Technology & AI Engineering, shaping roadmaps, partnering with vendors, and driving value through strategic architecture,

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.
• Proven ability to hire, coach, develop, and grow high‑performing teams; strong executive communication and vendor negotiation skills.

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 (Shack Stack, Payments, OMS, Kiosk, Fraud, Identity, Observability).
• 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 to ensure roadmap alignment and measurable outcomes.
• Define and drive reliability and resilience standards, including uptime SLAs, MTTR, incident response playbooks, and observability frameworks.
• Partner cross‑functionally with Product, Digital Engineering, Restaurant Tech, and AI engineering teams to enable new digital capabilities.
• Communicate platform health, performance insights, risk, and investment decisions to executives and stakeholders.

Skills

Technology leadership

Vendor management

Executive communication

Team leadership

AWS cloud

Tools

Okta

JTech/Sinch

Square

FreedomPay

Kount

Job description

Shake Shack is seeking a Director of Core Digital Platforms to define and scale foundational platforms such as Shack Stack, the Operator App, and AI-driven services. You will own platform reliability, performance, and security while guiding a team of Technical Platform Managers to deliver scalable digital experiences across guest journeys.

You will report to the VP Digital Technology & AI Engineering, shaping roadmaps, partnering with vendors, and driving value through strategic architecture,