Sr. Lead Software Engineer

Chick-fil-A Plainfield, Indiana; Atlanta (GA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Chick-fil-A is seeking a product engineer to lead and contribute to the design, delivery, and operation of cross-functional software that supports Operators and the Company. You will influence architecture, mentor engineers, and drive standards across teams.

The role blends hands-on coding with leadership, in a DevOps environment, supporting weekend and night coverage as needed to ensure reliable services and customer value.

Qualifications

• Broad and deep programming experience in Java, JavaScript, Python, Go, or other comparable languages.
• Passion for software engineering and for AI assisted SDLC
• Experience designing complex software solutions
• Experience working with Infrastructure as Code
• Experience mentoring, including good interpersonal and team collaboration skills
• Experience with SQL and data modeling
• Experience with source control systems like Git
• Experience implementing application security, software design patterns, and the SDLC
• Proven ability to positively influence the engineering culture and practices in a professional environment

Responsibilities

• Influence solution architecture decisions for your teams
• Lead delivery and operations of the team’s product, including both individual contribution and support as well as delegated tasks and support to your team’s engineers. We desire our lead engineers to be both leads and engineers, spending about half of their time on leading others and half contributing engineering work themselves.
• Lead, mentor, and assess other staff engineers, exemplifying and teaching best practices, helping to solve knotty problems, reviewing code, and sharing stories
• Assist in interviewing and onboarding of other engineers
• Assist in the design and delivery of products outside of your team, develop tools and processes for use outside of your team, and/or mentor other engineers (especially lead engineers) outside of your team
• Guide partner-led engineering workstreams, contributing to solution design and code reviews
• Guide engineering team in adoption of Chick-fil-A software engineering standards
• Identify & propose emerging software engineering technologies, methodologies and/or approaches
• Note - Working in a DevOps model, this opportunity includes both building and running solutions that could require off hours support. This support is sharedamongst the team members to coverweekends and weeknights. The goal is to design for failure and, using cloud-native infrastructure patterns, automate responses to possible issues so they can be worked during normal hours.

Skills

Java

JavaScript

Python

Go

AI-assisted SDLC

Software architecture

Infrastructure as Code

Mentoring

SQL

Data modeling

Git

Security & SDLC patterns

Engineering culture

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

Tools

AWS

Docker/Kubernetes

Git

Kafka / Amazon SQS

Job description

How We Work At Chick-fil-A

Chick-fil-A, Inc. ('Chick-fil-A' or 'the Company') Staff members play a vital role in achieving our strategic goals by developing their skills, fostering inclusive teamwork, and embracing innovation. All Staff are expected to contribute to a compelling future by inspiring and motivating those around them. Growth and development are essential at Chick-fil-A. We want Staff to seek new perspectives and adopt new methods to drive continuous improvement and adaptation to evolving business needs. Lastly, we ask Staff to seek wisdom, expect the best, accept responsibility, respond with courage, and think others first.

Our Flexible Futures Model offers a healthy mix of working in person (currently a minimum of 8-10 days per month) and virtually, strengthening key elements of the Chick-fil-A culture by fostering collaboration and community.

Overview

This role will serve Chick-fil-A franchise Operators and the Company as a product engineer, collaborating with stakeholders not only in Restaurant Financial Services and DTT to deliver outcomes that make a difference for Operators and the Company. You will be considered an AI and engineering wizard, even though you’ll only be moving through the traditional three loops of the SDLC—just without being the bottleneck yourself. You will bring clarity, speak to feasibility, and ultimately be responsible for engineering output of yourself, your team of Staff or External engineers, and the agents you and your teams use. You could build Financial Stewardship tools used by Operators to design and build a profitable business; or you might build tools used by Team Members that make their day just a little bit brighter as they serve Customers; or you might find yourself transforming legacy tools for the future or inventing something that we haven't even thought of yet.

Responsibilities

• Influence solution architecture decisions for your teams
• Lead delivery and operations of the team’s product, including both individual contribution and support as well as delegated tasks and support to your team’s engineers. We desire our lead engineers to be both leads and engineers, spending about half of their time on leading others and half contributing engineering work themselves.
• Lead, mentor, and assess other staff engineers, exemplifying and teaching best practices, helping to solve knotty problems, reviewing code, and sharing stories
• Assist in interviewing and onboarding of other engineers
• Assist in the design and delivery of products outside of your team, develop tools and processes for use outside of your team, and/or mentor other engineers (especially lead engineers) outside of your team
• Guide partner-led engineering workstreams, contributing to solution design and code reviews
• Guide engineering team in adoption of Chick-fil-A software engineering standards
• Identify & propose emerging software engineering technologies, methodologies and/or approaches

Note - Working in a DevOps model, this opportunity includes both building and running solutions that could require off hours support. This support is sharedamongst the team members to coverweekends and weeknights. The goal is to design for failure and, using cloud-native infrastructure patterns, automate responses to possible issues so they can be worked during normal hours.

Required Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities)

• Broad and deep programming experience in Java, JavaScript, Python, Go, or other comparable languages
• Passion for software engineering and for AI assisted SDLC
• Experience designing complex software solutions
• Experience working with Infrastructure as Code
• Experience mentoring, including good interpersonal and team collaboration skills
• Experience with SQL and data modeling
• Experience with source control systems like Git
• Experience implementing application security, software design patterns, and the SDLC
• Proven ability to positively influence the engineering culture and practices in a professional environment

Preferred Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities)

• Experience with test-driven development, continuous integration and deployment, Scrum discipline, or comparable software development practices
• Experience developing and delivering containerized microservices
• Deep understanding of AWS architecture
• Familiarity with version control systems and code merging/branching; specific experience with git desirable
• Experience working with an agile development methodology featuring sprints, points estimation, and daily standups
• Experience with Kafka, Amazon SQS, or similar event-driven architecture and tooling

Required Years of Experience

4

Preferred Years of Experience

5

Travel Requirements

10%

Required Level of Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

Preferred Level of Education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred Major/Concentration

Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related Technical Field

Preferred Major/Concentration

Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related Technical Field

Relocation Assistance Provided

No