Principal Software Engineer

Toast is driven by building the restaurant platform that helps restaurants adapt, take control, and get back to what they do best: building the businesses they love.As a Principal Engineer / architect you will be responsible for creating a technical strategy and coordinating the designs for meeting the needs of Toast’s largest restaurant brands. You will partner with Product Managers to develop the technology roadmap that enables enterprise customers to leverage the power of Toast. You will also work closely with technical leaders and implementation teams across the organization to deliver robust, scalable solutions with integrations to customers’ external systems. While the role is primarily internally-facing, it requires infrequent interactions with enterprise customers, listening to their requirements and providing expert guidance as they deploy Toast.If you’re a technical leader or a solutions architect, experienced with enterprise SaaS, passionate about customer value, and a great collaborator, read on!

About this roll*:

• Lead the evolution of Toast’s backend architecture, frameworks, and data models with a strong focus on delivery efficiency, system scalability, and resilience.
• Design and build the next generation of accounting and financial systems using Java, Kotlin, DynamoDB, Pulsar, GraphQL, Big Data tools, and more.
• Define and implement scalable engineering practices, delivery frameworks, and coding standards that raise the technical bar across the org.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, UX, QA, and multiple engineering teams to deliver robust, customer-facing solutions.
• Build and maintain strong partnerships across business units, aligning technology strategies with key company objectives.
• Champion data-driven decision making by developing strategies and prioritizing initiatives with high impact on user and business outcomes.
• Mentor and grow engineers across levels, promoting a culture of inclusivity, continuous learning, and engineering excellence.
• Guide and influence the broader technical roadmap and architecture strategy for Toast.
  

Do you have the right ingredients? (Requirements)*

• 14+ years of experience designing and delivering complex, scalable backend systems.
• Proven technical leadership on mission-critical projects, with the ability to influence across multiple teams.
• Strong experience building distributed, event-driven architectures and microservices in Java, Kotlin, Scala, or similar OOP languages.
• Deep understanding of data architecture and schema design; experience with DynamoDB is a plus.
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms like AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Strong knowledge of modern database systems (Postgres, SQL Server, DynamoDB).
• Experience working in an Agile/Scrum environment, delivering value continuously.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills; ability to break down complexity and drive solutions that scale.
• A passion for building impactful products with a customer-first mindset.
• Strong interpersonal and leadership skills—respectful, empathetic, humble, and inclusive.
• A growth mindset with a desire to constantly learn and uplift others.
• Comfortable balancing velocity with platform stability and long-term architecture goals.
  

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is Baked into our Recipe for Success

At Toast, our employees are our secret ingredient—when they thrive, we thrive. The restaurant industry is one of the most diverse, and we embrace that diversity with authenticity, inclusivity, respect, and humility. By embedding these principles into our culture and design, we create equitable opportunities for all and raise the bar in delivering exceptional experiences.

We Thrive Together

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 restaurant community. To learn more about how we work globally and regionally, check out: https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast.

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 candidateaccommodations@toasttab.com.

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.