Staff Software Engineer

Toast Tab, Inc.; Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology company in the restaurant industry seeks a Staff Software Engineer to join the Sous Chef team. This role involves driving innovative AI-powered solutions, mentoring engineers, and enhancing systems for better restaurant operations. Candidates should have deep expertise in backend development, machine learning, and cross-team collaboration.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in backend systems.
• Leadership experience in cross-functional teams.
• Expertise in scalable architectures and data modeling.

Responsibilities

• Drive technical strategy and architecture for AI-powered experiences.
• Lead cross-team projects from conception to production.
• Mentor and coach engineers across multiple teams.

Skills

Java

Kotlin

Microservices

Machine Learning

Cross-team Communication

Tools

DynamoDB

REST

GraphQL

Job description

Toast is driven by building the restaurant platform that helps restaurants adapt, take control, and get back to what they do best: building the businesses they love. We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join the Sous Chef team and lead the next phase of innovation in how Toast helps its customers operate more efficiently and intelligently.

On the Sous Chef team, our mission is to build an AI-powered assistant that transforms how restaurants make decisions, streamline operations, and engage with their data. By delivering actionable insights and intelligent recommendations, Sous Chef enables restaurateurs to focus more on hospitality and less on manual overhead. A successful Sous Chef experience means our customers spend fewer hours on operations, improve margins, grow revenue, and elevate the guest and employee experience—both within and beyond the Toast ecosystem.

This role is deeply cross-functional and high-impact, with ownership over end-to-end architecture, experience, data integrations, and AI service infrastructure. You will set technical direction, mentor engineers, and drive platform-wide improvements that scale across multiple teams and product areas.

About this roll* (Responsibilities)

• Drive the technical strategy and architecture for AI-powered experiences across the Toast platform, with a focus on scalability, performance, and usability.
• Lead cross-team initiatives and complex projects from conception to production, ensuring alignment across engineering, product, and design.
• Architect and build robust, scalable services and data pipelines that power the Sous Chef experience, integrating deeply with other core Toast products.
• Mentor and coach engineers across multiple teams, fostering technical growth, quality, and a culture of continuous improvement.
• Evaluate and integrate emerging technologies, particularly around LLMs and machine learning systems, to enhance product capabilities.
• Champion engineering excellence and best practices through design reviews, code reviews, and technical leadership.
• Partner closely with stakeholders to translate business goals into scalable technical solutions that create measurable customer impact.

Do you have the right ingredients* (Requirements)

• 8+ years of professional experience designing and building scalable backend systems using Java, Kotlin, or other object-oriented languages.
• Proven experience leading cross-functional initiatives and mentoring engineers across levels and teams.
• Deep expertise in modern service architectures (e.g. microservices, event-driven systems) and distributed systems at scale.
• Extensive with modern APIs and data modeling practices (REST, GraphQL, etc.), and experience with non-relational data stores such as DynamoDB.
• Hands-on experience integrating or building systems with machine learning or large language models.
• Experience delivering AI/ML-powered user experiences in production environments.
• Strong cross-team communication and the ability to influence technical roadmaps across multiple stakeholders.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and setting direction in fast-moving or greenfield areas.
• Passion for building intelligent products that make real-world businesses more successful.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is Baked into our Recipe for Success

At Toast, our employees are our secret ingredient—when they thrive, we thrive.The restaurant industry is one of the most diverse, and we embrace that diversity with authenticity, inclusivity, respect, and humility. By embedding these principles into our culture and design, we create equitable opportunities for all and raise the bar in delivering exceptional experiences.

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.

Apply today!

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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