Staff Software Engineer

at Instacart
  • $216k-$289k
  • Remote - United States

Remote

Software Development

Mid-level

Job description

We’re transforming the grocery industry

At Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers.

Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table.

Instacart is a Flex First team

There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.

Overview

About the Role -

Instacart’s Transaction Platform is a cornerstone of critical operations, from enhancing shopper checkout experiences to improving order quality through robust data and system innovation. We are seeking an experienced Staff Engineer (L7) to lead system design, infrastructure scalability, and growth efforts as we scale Point of Sale (POS) ingestion and item classification services to power our business critical features.

About the Team -

The Transaction Platform team plays a critical role in Instacart’s ecosystem by powering core functions that enhance shopper experiences, improve order quality, and enable scalable solutions for our retail partners. Our team focuses on building and optimizing systems, such as POS ingestion, item classification, and shopper checkout experiences, which are essential for fulfillment and overall operations like cash flow management, fraud prevention, catalog quality, and inventory machine learning advancements. By creating centralized, high-efficiency systems and ensuring accessible, accurate data flows, the Transaction Platform team enables multiple internal functions and unlocks new capabilities for future growth.

About the Job

  • Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams and partners to develop and deliver scalable, robust solutions.
  • Lead and prioritize complex problem areas, providing effective guidance to teams in addressing them.
  • Mentor team members while promoting best practices and fostering engineering excellence.
  • Drive impactful, organization-wide initiatives, with a focus on innovation and improvement.
  • Design and implement scalable point of sale ingestion and classification systems to enhance functionality and scalability.
  • Develop centralized, reliable APIs to manage high-volume point of sale data with accuracy and accessibility.
  • Build essential infrastructure and scalable data systems, to support cross functional initiatives.
  • Consolidate and centralize inconsistent classification systems, creating a high-efficiency platform.
  • Proactively address challenging, intricate problems with innovative and pragmatic solutions.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

  • 10+ years of professional experience in a similar field or environment.
  • Extensive experience working with a large codebase in a cross-functional team environment.
  • Proven ability to design, architect, and build production-grade systems, optimizing technologies at a global scale.
  • Proficiency in modern programming languages such as Ruby, Python, Java, C#, or equivalent.
  • Demonstrated excellence in leading technical discussions and collaborating effectively with senior to executive-level stakeholders to drive consensus and clarity.
  • Strong experience mentoring engineers and fostering a high-performing engineering culture.
  • A balanced approach to delivering pragmatic, high-quality solutions while maintaining a sense of urgency.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Familiarity with Ruby, Postgres is a plus.
  • Knowledge of grocery retail, catering, or enterprise platform technologies.
  • ML work experience
  • Experience working with financial data

Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work. This role is remote and the base pay range for a successful candidate is dependent on their permanent work location. Please review our Flex First remote work policy here.

Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role. Additionally, this role is eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants. Please read more about our benefits offerings here.

For US based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.

CA, NY, CT, NJ

$260,000—$289,000 USD

WA

$249,000—$277,000 USD

OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI

$239,000—$266,000 USD

All other states

$216,000—$240,000 USD

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