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.

About The Role

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.

About the Team

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:

 

Search Team:

An engineer who will improve our search architecture, playing a key role in the crucial stage of the customer shopping journey. This position will reshape how customers search for retailers and products on Instacart. The role involves working closely with machine learning engineers, product managers, UX designers, and data scientists to transform Instacart's search experience, making every interaction both personalized and meaningful.

About the Job

Responsibilities:

  • 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

  • Effectively lead a cross-functional team, demonstrating strong teamwork skills, and capable of clearly communicating ideas and fostering alignment across different departments.
  • Experience in building scalable solutions and architecture.
  • Familiarity with ML model development and iteration.
  • Thorough knowledge of developing applications using GraphQL.
  • Skilled in the use of monitoring and observability tools like Datadog.
  • Extensive experience with database management, particularly PostgreSQL and AWS OpenSearch.

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 and British Columbia.

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
$189,000—$210,000 CAD

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At Instacart, we like to think of ourselves as a potluck—where everyone brings something new, different, and flavorful to the table. We believe our team’s wide range of perspectives, experiences and backgrounds enable us to build a better product for our customers. Instacart is for everyone, and we’re committed to fostering diverse and inclusive teams that reflect the communities we serve.

Individuals seeking employment at Instacart are considered without regards to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic. 

Please note: If you apply for more than one job, you will be asked to fill out the questionnaire for each application.  

How is this information used?

In order to track our effectiveness in recruiting a wide range of talent and to ensure that we comply with reporting requirements, we invite all applicants to voluntarily provide demographic information in a confidential survey. Providing this information is entirely optional. It is only used to ensure our hiring efforts remain free of bias and for diversity monitoring purposes. Data collected is not factored into the hiring decision or thereafter and will not affect your opportunity for employment at Instacart.

Who has access to this data?

To ensure our hiring efforts are equitable, data is stored confidentially in our ATS (Applicant Tracking System) where only an Administrator can view demographic reporting. It is not accessible to hiring teams. Data is stored securely in a cloud-based data-warehouse to create anonymized dashboards that select HR leaders can reference.

Self-identification categories 

  • Gender Identity: How a person identifies their gender, regardless of their gender assigned at birth. 
  • 2SLGBTQIA+: An umbrella term for a range of sexual orientations and gender identities/expressions. Stands for "Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual. The plus sign is meant to encompass all other identities that belong to this community."
  • Race/Ethnicity: A person’s racial, ethnic or origin identity. 
  • Disability Status: A person’s physical or mental impairment which may limit one or more of their major life activities. Learn more here. 
  • Veteran Status: A person who has spent time serving in any branch of the military (retired or active).
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