Staff Software Engineer, Applied AI
Toast, Inc.Responsibilities
- Own the design, delivery, rollout, and improvement of core capabilities for a new AI-powered product.
- Prototype solutions for ambiguous product problems and decide what to evolve, rebuild, or stop based on customer feedback and results.
- Build LLM-powered workflows and agents using model reasoning, tools, APIs, and conventional software as appropriate.
- Design evaluations for AI capabilities, investigate failures, and use evaluation results to improve system behavior.
- Shape backend services, APIs, and data models for scalable product evolution.
- Deliver integrations, resolve technical dependencies, and establish ownership of shared capabilities across teams.
- Partner with Product and Design on customer experience, technical feasibility, reliability, latency, and cost tradeoffs.
- Implement critical components, debug difficult problems, and own successful production rollouts.
- Improve team effectiveness through technical feedback, mentoring, and responsible use of AI coding assistants and agents.
Requirements
- 8–12 years of experience building backend services, APIs, and production software.
- Extensive experience with an object-oriented language such as Java or Kotlin and a deep understanding of testing, software design, and engineering best practices.
- Experience building and scaling distributed systems and cloud-native services on AWS.
- Hands-on experience shipping and operating LLM-powered applications, including tool- or API-using agents for multi-step tasks.
- Experience designing and implementing AI system evaluations, investigating failures, and improving system behavior.
- Proficiency using AI coding assistants and coding agents throughout the software development lifecycle, including reviewing, testing, and validating their output.
- Experience balancing delivery speed with platform stability, security, and reliability in evolving environments.
- Experience influencing technical direction across multiple teams and communicating complex technical topics effectively.
- Strong customer focus, collaboration, and ownership in ambiguous environments.
- Experience building early-stage products and scaling them with customer adoption is a plus.
- Experience designing and building GraphQL APIs is a plus.
- Comfort working across the stack is a plus.
Benefits
- Hybrid work model with in-person collaboration and region-specific in-office expectations.
- Competitive compensation and benefits supporting healthy lifestyles and changing needs.
- Inclusive hiring process with reasonable accommodations available.
Categories
About Toast, Inc.
Bottom Line – Solving business problems and generating positive growth is our jam! We are focused on helping purpose-driven brands make a positive impact with predictable Inbound Growth Programs. As a small business, we get it. Growing pains are genuine for many companies in today’s evolving digital landscape. Standing apart from your competition, connecting with your customers, predictably hitting your goals, and scaling are becoming more challenging as local and global markets expand. But it's not impossible. Digging into the unique challenges your business encounters, we analyze every detail and identify opportunities to grow. Our conversational framework is based on data, mixed with beautiful design, story-telling, and smothered in personality to craft marketing and sales strategies that make it all happen. Do you want to transform your company into a crave-worthy brand that new and existing customers will love and promote? Let's Get Cookin'!