Senior Software Engineer, Logistics Foundations
About the role
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 - As a Senior Software Engineer on the Logistics Foundations team, you will play a pivotal role in developing the core backend and ML foundations that drive our fulfillment technology. Your work will involve shaping the vision of the foundation, optimizing performance, and collaborating closely with MLE and product engineers from the product team. Your contributions will push the boundaries of fulfillment technology and create a lasting impact across the ecosystem.
Example projects in this space include:build infrastructure that powers ML applications, such as delivery ETA prediction, while handling thousands of queries per second; architect system for ingesting and processing millions of shopper GPS data; build systems that reinvent the abstractions, data-model, and inter-service communication of the fulfillment systems.
About the Team - This role will be positioned within the Fulfillment organization. It is responsible for all aspects of the order life cycle, both for full-service orders picked by Instacart shoppers and orders backed by Instacart’s white-label integration with retail partners.
The hiring team is the Logistics Foundations team, a cornerstone of our operations focused on shaping the future of fulfillment architecture. Our vision is to enable new capabilities that drive both business and strategic impact through cutting-edge engineering solutions, maximizing the efficiency of MLEs and product engineers. By advancing foundational systems, our team plays a critical role in enabling efficient, scalable logistics solutions, driving growth, and ensuring success across the organization.
About The Job
- Own and lead major components of our foundation, lead the development of the system's roadmap, prioritizing scalability and reliability.
- Design, build, and maintain high-quality, high-throughput foundation systems to empower Machine Learning Engineers and product engineers.
- Analyze and refine our architecture to propose new systems that improve delivery and operational excellence.
- Establish new standards to improve the engineering quality of the organization, promoting a culture of excellence.
- Drive the adoption of cutting-edge technologies and employ advanced AI toolsets to accelerate development processes within the organization.
About You Minimum Qualifications
- 5+ years of backend development experience in building scalable solutions and architecture, with a strong record of project delivery.
- Proficiency in backend languages, such as Ruby, Python or Go.
- Proficiency in maintaining production services to the highest standards.
- Proven ability to write efficient code quickly and manage high-traffic production services.
- Exceptional communication skills and the ability to lead and collaborate with diverse teams.
Preferred Qualifications
- Skilled at navigating ambiguity.
- Experience working across teams to champion platform solutions.
- Proficiency in system performance optimization such as CPU utilization, load balancing, and latency reduction.
- Expertise in leveraging AI to enhance delivery velocity and efficiency.
- Effectively lead a cross-functional team, demonstrating strong teamwork skills, and capable of clearly communicating ideas and fostering alignment across different departments.
- Familiarity with ML foundation development and iteration.
- Skilled in the use of monitoring and observability tools like Datadog.
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. Currently, we are only hiring in the following provinces: Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia.
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 Canadian based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.
CAN
$165,000—$183,000 CAD
About Instacart
Instacart, the leading grocery technology company in North America, works with grocers and retailers to transform how people shop. The company partners with more than 1,500 national, regional, and local retail banners to facilitate online shopping, delivery and pickup services from more than 85,000 stores across North America on the Instacart Marketplace. Instacart makes it possible for millions of people to get the groceries they need from the retailers they love, and for approximately 600,000 Instacart shoppers to earn by picking, packing and delivering orders on their own flexible schedule. The Instacart Platform offers retailers a suite of enterprise-grade technology products and services to power their e-commerce experiences, fulfill orders, digitize brick-and-mortar stores, provide advertising services, and glean insights. With Instacart Ads, thousands of CPG brands – from category leaders to emerging brands – partner with the company to connect directly with consumers online, right at the point of purchase. With Instacart Health, the company is providing tools to increase nutrition security, make healthy choices easier for consumers, and expand the role that food can play in improving health outcomes. For more information, visit www.instacart.com/company.
Senior Software Engineer, Logistics Foundations
About the role
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 - As a Senior Software Engineer on the Logistics Foundations team, you will play a pivotal role in developing the core backend and ML foundations that drive our fulfillment technology. Your work will involve shaping the vision of the foundation, optimizing performance, and collaborating closely with MLE and product engineers from the product team. Your contributions will push the boundaries of fulfillment technology and create a lasting impact across the ecosystem.
Example projects in this space include:build infrastructure that powers ML applications, such as delivery ETA prediction, while handling thousands of queries per second; architect system for ingesting and processing millions of shopper GPS data; build systems that reinvent the abstractions, data-model, and inter-service communication of the fulfillment systems.
About the Team - This role will be positioned within the Fulfillment organization. It is responsible for all aspects of the order life cycle, both for full-service orders picked by Instacart shoppers and orders backed by Instacart’s white-label integration with retail partners.
The hiring team is the Logistics Foundations team, a cornerstone of our operations focused on shaping the future of fulfillment architecture. Our vision is to enable new capabilities that drive both business and strategic impact through cutting-edge engineering solutions, maximizing the efficiency of MLEs and product engineers. By advancing foundational systems, our team plays a critical role in enabling efficient, scalable logistics solutions, driving growth, and ensuring success across the organization.
About The Job
- Own and lead major components of our foundation, lead the development of the system's roadmap, prioritizing scalability and reliability.
- Design, build, and maintain high-quality, high-throughput foundation systems to empower Machine Learning Engineers and product engineers.
- Analyze and refine our architecture to propose new systems that improve delivery and operational excellence.
- Establish new standards to improve the engineering quality of the organization, promoting a culture of excellence.
- Drive the adoption of cutting-edge technologies and employ advanced AI toolsets to accelerate development processes within the organization.
About You Minimum Qualifications
- 5+ years of backend development experience in building scalable solutions and architecture, with a strong record of project delivery.
- Proficiency in backend languages, such as Ruby, Python or Go.
- Proficiency in maintaining production services to the highest standards.
- Proven ability to write efficient code quickly and manage high-traffic production services.
- Exceptional communication skills and the ability to lead and collaborate with diverse teams.
Preferred Qualifications
- Skilled at navigating ambiguity.
- Experience working across teams to champion platform solutions.
- Proficiency in system performance optimization such as CPU utilization, load balancing, and latency reduction.
- Expertise in leveraging AI to enhance delivery velocity and efficiency.
- Effectively lead a cross-functional team, demonstrating strong teamwork skills, and capable of clearly communicating ideas and fostering alignment across different departments.
- Familiarity with ML foundation development and iteration.
- Skilled in the use of monitoring and observability tools like Datadog.
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. Currently, we are only hiring in the following provinces: Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia.
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 Canadian based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.
CAN
$165,000—$183,000 CAD
About Instacart
Instacart, the leading grocery technology company in North America, works with grocers and retailers to transform how people shop. The company partners with more than 1,500 national, regional, and local retail banners to facilitate online shopping, delivery and pickup services from more than 85,000 stores across North America on the Instacart Marketplace. Instacart makes it possible for millions of people to get the groceries they need from the retailers they love, and for approximately 600,000 Instacart shoppers to earn by picking, packing and delivering orders on their own flexible schedule. The Instacart Platform offers retailers a suite of enterprise-grade technology products and services to power their e-commerce experiences, fulfill orders, digitize brick-and-mortar stores, provide advertising services, and glean insights. With Instacart Ads, thousands of CPG brands – from category leaders to emerging brands – partner with the company to connect directly with consumers online, right at the point of purchase. With Instacart Health, the company is providing tools to increase nutrition security, make healthy choices easier for consumers, and expand the role that food can play in improving health outcomes. For more information, visit www.instacart.com/company.