Principal Software Engineer, Tech Lead, Retail

Socket.dev; Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 368,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Job summary

Toast is seeking senior engineers to shape the product for our largest customers, including major grocery and local retailers. You will design scalable systems, mentor staff, and partner with cross-functional teams.

Expect to visit stores and understand operators' workflows to tailor back-office integrations and tools. We value humility, growth, user focus, and the ability to drive long-term technical decisions while delivering immediate value.

Qualifications

• 9+ years of experience shipping production software to customers.
• Experience with Java, Kotlin, or other object oriented languages.
• Approach your work with humility, empathy, and deep respect for peers.
• Articulate roadmaps and empower engineering cohorts to drive them forward.
• Startup mindset in driving initiatives and ability to handle ambiguity.
• Passionate about making users happy and seeing your product used.
• Growth-oriented mindset to elevate your craft and domain.
• Establish yourself as a trusted technical authority for quick wins and long-term goals.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, deploy, and maintain highly resilient and scalable systems for customers.
• Define and drive long-term architectural strategy across the org.
• Design solutions anticipating future needs while weighing tradeoffs.
• Communicate technical direction effectively.
• Sponsor and mentor senior engineers to grow future tech leaders.
• Improve engineering productivity and act as a force multiplier.
• Diagnose performance bottlenecks and implement optimizations.
• Leverage AI tools to enhance development velocity and explore new approaches.

Skills

9+ yrs exp

Java/Kotlin

OO languages

Roadmaps & leadership

Startup mindset

User focus

Growth mindset

Decision making

Job description

Location(s): US (remote), Boston (hybrid), or New York (hybrid)

Bready* to make a change?

Toast creates technology to help restaurants and local businesses succeed in a digital world, helping business owners operate, increase sales, engage customers, and keep employees happy.

The Retail organization at Toast is focused on building foundational technology to support a rapidly expanding vertical. We emphasize early learnings and remain closely aligned with our customers, engaging in frequent conversations with our initial retail partners to understand their needs, pain points, and feature requests. This direct feedback loop allows us to rapidly iterate and ensures we are building the right product for the market. As one of the fastest-growing verticals at Toast, we offer an opportunity to have a significant impact on the company's future growth.

We’re looking for engineers to help make our product work for our largest customers. Think large grocery stores and your favorite local convenience store chain. With their larger scale bring additional needs for integrations and back-office tools, beyond what the platform offers today. This team works closely with customers — expect to visit stores and talk directly with operators to deeply understand their workflows.

About this roll* (Responsibilities)

• Design, build, deploy, and maintain highly resilient and scalable systems that are critical to our customers’ success
• Define and drive long-term technical architecture and strategy across the entire organization, aligning executive business goals with platform capabilities.
• Design solutions that anticipate and accommodate future needs while considering tradeoffs
• Effectively communicate technical direction
• Sponsor and mentor senior engineering talent (Staff and Senior Staff engineers) to grow the next generation of technical leaders across Toast.
• Act as a force multiplier in improving engineering productivity
• Diagnose performance bottlenecks and implement optimizations
• Leverage cutting edge AI tools to enhance your development workflow, improve velocity, and help pioneer new approaches to building - contributing to a culture of innovation and productivity across the team.

Do you have the right ingredients*? (Requirements)

• 9+ years experience building and shipping production software to customers
• Experience with Java, Kotlin, or other object oriented programming languages
• Approach your work with humility, empathy, and deep respect for your peers
• Articulate sophisticated project roadmaps and empower engineering cohorts to drive them toward fruition
• Startup mindset in driving initiatives and ability to find order in ambiguity
• Passionate about making users happy and seeing people use your product in the wild.
• Embody a growth-oriented mindset focused on continuous elevation of your craft and domain
• Establish yourself as a trusted technical authority capable of making decisions that secure both immediate wins and long-term strategic goals

AI at Toast

At Toast, one of our company values is that we're hungry to build and learn. We believe learning new AI tools empowers us to build for our customers faster, more independently, and with higher quality. We provide these tools across all disciplines, from Engineering and Product to Sales and Support, and are inspired by how our Toasters are already driving real value with them. The people who thrive here are those who embrace changes that let us build more for our customers; it’s a core part of our culture.

Our Total Rewards Philosophy

We strive to provide competitive compensation and benefits programs that help to attract, retain, and motivate the best and brightest people in our industry. Our total rewards package goes beyond great earnings potential and provides the means to a healthy lifestyle with the flexibility to meet Toasters’ changing needs. Learn more about our benefits at https://careers.toasttab.com/toast-benefits.

Salary Range

• Zone A: $230,000 — $368,000 USD
• Zone B: $200,000 — $320,000 USD
• Zone C: $180,000 — $288,000 USD

People Are the Secret Ingredient in Our Recipe for Success

At Toast, our employees are our secret ingredient—when they thrive, we thrive. The restaurant industry brings together people with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, and we value that same breadth at Toast. We strive to build a culture grounded in authenticity, respect, and humility, where every Toaster has a real opportunity to grow, contribute, and do their best work—raising the bar in delivering exceptional experiences for our customers and each other.

We Thrive Together

We embrace a hybrid work model that fosters in-person collaboration while valuing individual needs. Our goal is to build a strong culture of connection as we work together to empower the restaurant community. To learn more about how we work globally and regionally, check out: https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast.

Toast is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive hiring process. As part of this commitment, we strive to provide reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities to enable them to access the hiring process. If you need an accommodation to access the job application or interview process, please contact [e-mail].

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