Staff Data Scientist

• 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.
• As a Staff Data Scientist, you'll lead the design and development of scalable ML systems for use cases such as menu recommendation, demand forecasting, offer targeting, and guest personalization.
• You will serve as a technical thought partner across teams, set best practices, and influence the roadmap for ML-driven products that support key business outcomes.
• Your work will directly shape strategic decisions and enhance customer experience at scale.

A day in the life

(Responsibilities)

• Own the full machine learning lifecycle—from problem framing and data exploration to modeling, deployment, and monitoring—for mission-critical initiatives.
• Design and implement advanced ML and statistical models that improve product performance, operational efficiency, or customer insights.
• Collaborate with engineers, product managers, and business stakeholders to define project scope, success metrics, and integration strategy.
• Guide architectural decisions, set modeling standards, and champion best practices for experimentation, validation, and productionization.
• Mentor other data scientists and raise the technical bar through design reviews, feedback, and sharing domain expertise.
• Proactively identify areas where data science can create business value and lead cross-functional efforts to drive those opportunities forward.
• 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.

What you'll need to thrive (Requirements)

• 7+ years of experience in data science with a proven track record of delivering production ML systems that drive measurable impact.
• Deep knowledge of statistical modeling, machine learning (e.g., tree-based models, time series, deep learning), and model evaluation.
• Experience working with real-world product data at scale and translating ambiguous problems into well-scoped ML solutions.
• Experience with distributed data processing and training, real-time inference, and ML Ops frameworks
• Prior experience mentoring other data scientists or acting as a tech lead.
• Experience leading experimentation (e.g., A/B testing), causal inference, and real-time decision systems.
• Proficiency in Python and SQL, and experience with ML frameworks (e.g., scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Strong grasp of software engineering principles including modular design, version control, testing, and CI/CD.
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (preferably AWS), including tools like SageMaker, Athena, Glue, DynamoDB, and Bedrock.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to influence both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to align technical solutions with company goals.
• Experience building services on top of LLMs in a large scale production environment.

Bonus ingredients* :

• An advanced degree in Computer Science, Statistics, or a related STEM field is preferred.
• Familiarity with MLOps tooling for monitoring, drift detection, retraining, and explainability.
• Experience fine-tuning LLMs and applying reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) to improve model performance and alignment.

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 .

#LI-Remote

• 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

$170,000 — $272,000 USD

Zone B

$148,000 — $237,000 USD

Zone C

$133,000 — $213,000 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.

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.