Principal Software Engineer (Tech Lead)

• As a member of the Configuration Platform team, you will be at the heart of Toast’s most critical infrastructure
• We are the high-concurrency engine powering live system updates across the entire Toast ecosystem. Whether it’s a menu change in Ireland or a pricing update for a 100 location enterprise, it all flows through our systems
• We empower our customers with the ability to transform their operations in real-time with consistency and reliability
• Scale and Resiliency: We are the highest-trafficked service at Toast. Our platform is mission-critical to core operations like ordering and business management; if we aren’t performing, the business stops
• Expanding the Vision: We are advancing a sophisticated change management vision. We give customers the confidence and precision tools they need to manage complex configurations and run their global businesses with ease
• Platform Enablement: Beyond serving end-users, we are an ever-evolving internal platform. We aim to empower other Toast engineering teams to build, deploy, and scale their own features quickly on top of our robust architecture
• Future-Proofing: As our customer base grows at a phenomenal rate, we are re-architecting our infrastructure to handle increasing technical complexity and global scale
• Serve as the technical lead for the Config Platform team, owning the technical vision, architecture, and quality of the systems we build and operate
• Design, build, deploy, and maintain highly resilient and scalable systems that are critical to our customers’ success, staying hands-on in the code and the details
• Lead the modernization of our architecture for scale and drive the technical vision for enterprise-grade change management, so customers can confidently audit and manage changes across thousands of locations
• Define and drive long-term technical architecture and strategy across the entire organization, aligning executive business goals with platform capabilities
• Partner with Engineering Management, Product, and Design to shape the roadmap, turn ambiguous problems into well-scoped, sequenced plans, and drive execution through to delivery
• Design solutions that anticipate and accommodate future needs while considering tradeoffs
• Lead technical design reviews and set a high bar for code quality, testing, and operational excellence across the team
• Effectively communicate technical direction and build alignment with the Toast engineering teams that build on top of our platform
• Own the operational health of the highest-trafficked service at Toast: diagnose performance bottlenecks, implement optimizations, and lead incident response and follow-through
• Mentor and grow the engineers on your team, and sponsor 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, including pioneering how the team uses AI tools to build faster and with higher quality

Benefits

• Peer and company recognition programs
• Unlimited Vacation
• Sabbatical opportunity after five years
• Professional Development Reimbursement Program
• Commitment to Employee Wellness through resources such as a quarterly Wellness Stipend
• Various peer and company recognition programs
• 401(k) and matching
• Medical, Dental, & Vision Coverage
• Mental Health Benefits
• Subsidized backup childcare

• Proven track record of delivering and operating mission-critical production services at scale
• Approach your work with humility, empathy, and deep respect for your peers
• 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
• Articulate sophisticated project roadmaps and empower engineering cohorts to drive them toward fruition
• Maintain end-to-end ownership over high-throughput systems while navigating the complexities of distributed architecture