Staff Software Engineer, Application Infrastructure

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.

Now, more than ever, the Toast team is committed to our customers. We’re taking steps to help restaurants navigate these unprecedented times with technology, resources, and community. Our focus is on building the restaurant platform that helps restaurants adapt, take control, and get back to what they do best: building the businesses they love. And because our technology is purpose-built for restaurants, by restaurant people, restaurants can trust that we’ll deliver on their needs for today while investing in experiences that will power their restaurant in the future. 

Are you bready* for a change?

We are looking for an experienced software engineer to play a critical role in further scaling and developing Toast’s cloud platform and infrastructure. Toast’s platform processes billions of requests per day from hundreds of internal services and hundreds of thousands of mobile devices; these numbers grow exponentially year over year as we add new restaurants and capabilities to the platform. Our team is responsible for developing secure, observable, highly available, large-scale shared services and infrastructure.

About thisroll * (Responsibilities) 

• Architect, design, and deliver ultra-reliable, high-performance services and infrastructure used by millions
• Uncover and resolve performance bottlenecks across infrastructure, databases, and APIs
• Define and enable adherence to engineering best practices, coding standards, and architectural guidelines
• Collaborate closely with the Product team to influence features, technical direction, and long-term product vision

Do you have the right ingredients* (Requirements)?

• Hands-on experience building and operating complex, mission-critical, large-scale distributed systems in the Cloud
• Expertise in asynchronous messaging, event-driven architecture, APIs, and integration patterns
• Track record of delivering clean, maintainable, and resilient code that stands the test of time
• Proficiency in Java or Kotlin preferred (experience in other modern programming languages also valued)
• Exceptional communication and collaboration skills, with demonstrated ability to align and inspire cross-functional teams
• A demonstrated record of mentoring junior team members and enhancing the team's effectiveness

Tech Stack

Our team builds and operates on a modern, cloud-native stack with heavy use of AWS, developing services and shared libraries in Kotlin and Go backed by PostgreSQL and DynamoDB. Infrastructure is provisioned and managed with Terraform. We oversee Toast’s sharded PostgreSQL databases, own and drive the organization’s use of Apache Pulsar to enable event-driven architecture at scale, and provide developers with tools and services to easily schedule recurring jobs. Our systems also power customer engagement, integrating with SMS and email providers to reliably deliver millions of messages per day.

We embrace AI-driven software development at Toast across the lifecycle from design and implementation to testing and production monitoring.

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.

Bread* puns encouraged but not required! 

The base salary range for this role is listed below. The starting salary will be determined based on skills, experience, and geographic location. In addition to base salary, our total rewards components include cash compensation (overtime, bonus/commissions if eligible), equity, and benefits. You can learn more about how we align pay with local labor markets in our Geographic Pay Zone Philosophy.

Zone A

$193,000—$309,000 USD

Zone B

$168,000—$269,000 USD

Zone C

$151,000—$242,000 USD

How Toast Uses AI in its Hiring Process

Throughout the hiring process, our goal is to get to know you. We use AI tools to support our recruiters and interviewers with tasks like note-taking, summarization, and documentation of interviews to ensure they can be fully focused on your conversation. All hiring decisions are made by people. We ask that you complete interviews and assessments on your own, without real-time AI tools, recording, or transcription bots, unless we tell you otherwise in advance. To learn more: https://careers.toasttab.com/ai-in-hiring

Our Approach to Hybrid Working

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 hospitality community, regardless of location. Please visit the Locations page on our career site to learn more about our in-office expectations by region: https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast

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.

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 [email protected].

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For roles in the United States, it is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.