Principal Software Engineer, Tech Lead, Retail

• Bready* to make a change?
• 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.
• The Retail organization at Toast is focused on building foundational technology to support a rapidly expanding vertical.
• We emphasize early learnings and remain closely aligned with our customers, engaging in frequent conversations with our initial retail partners to understand their needs, pain points, and feature requests.
• This direct feedback loop allows us to rapidly iterate and ensures we are building the right product for the market.
• As one of the fastest-growing verticals at Toast, we offer an opportunity to have a significant impact on the company's future growth.
• We're looking for engineers to help make our product work for our largest customers.
• Think large grocery stores and your favorite local convenience store chain.
• With their larger scale bring additional needs for integrations and back-office tools, beyond what the platform offers today.
• This team works closely with customers — expect to visit stores and talk directly with operators to deeply understand their workflows.

About this roll* (Responsibilities)

• Design, build, deploy, and maintain highly resilient and scalable systems that are critical to our customers' success
• Define and drive long-term technical architecture and strategy across the entire organization, aligning executive business goals with platform capabilities.
• Design solutions that anticipate and accommodate future needs while considering tradeoffs
• Effectively communicate technical direction
• Sponsor and mentor senior engineering talent (Staff and Senior Staff engineers) to grow the next generation of technical leaders across Toast.
• Act as a force multiplier in improving engineering productivity
• Diagnose performance bottlenecks and implement optimizations
• 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.

Do you have the right ingredients*? (Requirements)

• 9+ years experience building and shipping production software to customers
• Experience with Java, Kotlin, or other object oriented programming languages
• Approach your work with humility, empathy, and deep respect for your peers
• Articulate sophisticated project roadmaps and empower engineering cohorts to drive them toward fruition
• Startup mindset in driving initiatives and ability to find order in ambiguity
• Passionate about making users happy and seeing people use your product in the wild.
• Embody a growth-oriented mindset focused on continuous elevation of your craft and domain
• Establish yourself as a trusted technical authority capable of making decisions that secure both immediate wins and long-term strategic goals

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 .
• 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

$230,000 — $368,000 USD

Zone B

$200,000 — $320,000 USD

Zone C

$180,000 — $288,000 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] .

------

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.