Senior Software Engineer II, Core Experience

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

This role challenges traditional approaches to digital shopping by improving backend systems that power a seamless user journey. You will lead efforts to enhance content discoverability and purchase processes, helping to perfect the interaction between user desires and our vast product offerings.

The Senior Software Engineer will focus on enhancing the user experience by developing robust backend architectures that support advanced recommendation and personalization systems. In close collaboration with ML engineers, product teams, and data scientists, you will lead the innovation of our backend services, enabling sophisticated, data-driven features that adapt to our customers' shopping behaviors.

The Core Experience teams are dedicated to creating engaging and straightforward shopping experiences. You will be part of a team that is at the heart of product innovation, focusing on everything from the user interfaces to the underlying systems that support our web and mobile platforms. Our team’s work is guided by a data-driven methodology that ensures decisions are aligned with consumer needs, helping us move swiftly and efficiently in our development processes.

Overview of the Core Experiences teams that are currently hiring:

Order Quality:

The Order Quality Team at Instacart is dedicated to delivering a seamless and dependable online grocery experience by ensuring every order is picked and delivered with the highest level of accuracy and care. We are responsible for the end to end post-checkout journey, which includes building intelligent replacement algorithms, providing real-time order status updates, and managing communication channels through SMS, push notifications, and live activity tracking. Our team also oversees features such as item summary pages, chat, cancellations and rescheduling, post-checkout pickup experience, and post order feedback, always striving to recover gracefully when things don’t go as planned. The Order Quality Team plays a vital role in creating transparency and control for customers, embodying Instacart’s commitment to operational excellence and innovation at scale.

About the Job

• Design, build, and maintain high-quality backend applications.
• Lead the development of our backend system's roadmap, prioritizing scalability and reliability.
• Innovate and think creatively to develop new features that enhance our customer's shopping experiences.
• Own and lead major components of our product, ensuring they meet both internal standards and external expectations.
• Collaborate across teams to foster a unified approach to product development, facilitating consensus and driving effective outcomes.
• Responsible for the strategic planning and execution of projects you oversee, from inception to deployment and maintenance.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of backend development experience, with a strong record of project delivery.
• Proficiency in backend languages, such as Ruby or Go.
• A solid foundation in unit testing and problem-solving.
• Exceptional communication skills and the ability to lead and collaborate with diverse teams.
• Holds a Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with recommender systems and personalization algorithms.
• Familiarity with ML model development and iteration.
• Deep understanding of feed architecture principles.
• Skilled in the use of monitoring and observability tools like Datadog.
• Extensive experience with database management, particularly PostgreSQL.

#LI-Remote

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.

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 US based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.

CA, NY, CT, NJ

$230,000—$242,000 USD

WA

$220,000—$232,000 USD

OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI

$211,000—$222,000 USD

All other states

$192,000—$202,000 USD