Senior Software Engineer, Instacart
Backend Platform
CA$165-183k
+ New hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants
More information about location
Online grocery marketplace & grocery tech platform
Open for applications
Online grocery marketplace & grocery tech platform
1001+ employees
Open for applications
CA$165-183k
+ New hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants
More information about location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To create a world where everyone has access to the food they love and have more time to enjoy it together.
Role
Who you are
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience
- 5 years of experience with software development in one or more programming languages
- 3 years of experience in designing, analyzing, and troubleshooting large-scale distributed systems, and 2 years of experience leading projects and providing technical leadership
- Strong proficiency in maintaining high standards for production services
- Rapid coding skills and management of high-traffic production services
- Experience with high scale throughput and distributed systems problems
Desirable
- Skilled at navigating ambiguity and deriving insights from complex data sets
- Experience working across teams to champion platform solutions
- Visionary thinker capable of generating transformative ideas
- Expertise in leveraging AI to enhance delivery velocity and efficiency
- Prior experience in SRE a bonus
What the job involves
- As a Senior Software Engineer on the Backend Platform team, you will play a key role in ensuring that both our customer-facing services and internal tools remain reliable, perform well, and meet the needs of our users
- You’ll take ownership in high-pressure situations, responding to on-call incidents, resolving issues, and improving system reliability
- Your work will directly impact millions of users, helping to build a more reliable and performant platform at scale
- You’ll also drive continuous improvement to make Instacart’s services even better
- Additionally, you will enhance the architectural framework to increase delivery speed and facilitate swift product development
- You will also implement new processes to boost operational excellence, making use of AI tools to accelerate development
- At Instacart, the Backend Platform Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team brings together software and systems engineering to design and maintain reliable, large-scale, and distributed systems that keep everything running smoothly
- Our work focuses on optimizing systems, building robust infrastructure, and automating wherever possible to reduce repetitive tasks
- On the SRE team, you’ll tackle the unique, exciting challenges of scaling systems that power millions of shoppers and customers, leveraging your skills in coding, algorithms, complexity analysis, and the design of large-scale systems
- This is your chance to make a big impact at Instacart
- Work on services through their entire life cycle, from design to deployment, operation, and improvement
- Help launch services by designing systems, building platforms, planning capacity, and reviewing launches
- Keep services running smoothly by monitoring availability, latency, and system performance
- Improve systems using automation and updates to make them faster and more reliable
- Respond to incidents efficiently to ensure services meet performance goals
Our take
Instacart is an online grocery marketplace that operates a pick-up and delivery system in the US and Canada. Unlike standard grocery shopping, Instacart sends a “personal shopper” to your local store to buy your products, who then delivers them straight to your door on the same day via their own car. The company also supplies the Instacart Platform, with services for stores encompassing eCommerce, fulfilment, in-store, ads, and insights.
The increased modernization of society has meant more than ever that consumers are looking to buy their groceries online, making space for apps like Instacart to become daily life staples for years to come. Although the company must compete with other grocery store delivery services, such as Walmart’s own, it has expanded to cover large percentages of US and Canadian households, and is now aligned with over 900 retail banners across more than 75,000 locations.
Instacart's software offerings signify the company's focus on tech, designed to move it away from its dependence on the gig economy. To this end, the company has acquired FoodStorm, an order management system that powers end-to-end order-ahead and catering, integrating its technology into its enterprise suite. Despite an IPO in September 2023, market downturns have necessitated a 7% workforce cut in 2024, focused on middle management and creating a flatter organisational structure. With a new streamlined workforce, here's to hoping Instacart can maintain its momentum.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
7% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 14 rounds)
Nov 2021
$232m
LATE VC
Mar 2021
$265m
LATE VC
Total funding: $2.9bn
Company benefits
- Wellness Tailored to You: Medical, dental, vision, retirement, life & disability coverage right alongside physical & mental wellness programs, memberships and stipends to keep you and your family feeling your best.
- Family Building Benefits: No matter where you are in your family journey, we support you. Our plans cover modern family planning for all. We offer leave for all parents, flexible working schedules and an active Parents@ community.
- Work From Home Stipend: We help outfit your WFH setup and offer reimbursements so you can be your most productive while at home.
- Flexible Time Off: We all recharge differently. Take the time you need with our flexible time off policy and company-wide Self-Checkouts where we encourage everyone to sign off.
- Learning & Development: Whether you're just starting your career or leading teams, we provide customized L&D programs to help you grow and an annual allowance to pursue your development.
- Future Planning: We have you covered as you plan for your future. 401(k) matching in the US and RRSP in Canada, student loan assistance through Peanut Butter, free Rocket Lawyer membership, SoFi & First Republic financial planning and more.
- Four Year Fill-Up: We encourage our tenured employees to take longer breaks and truly unplug by doing something they love – typically four consecutive weeks around the four year mark.
- Community Connection: Support the communities you care about with volunteer weeks and get involved with our social impact program, Instacart Serves.
- Instacart Express Membership: We help keep your fridge stocked. Unlock grocery discounts with our Instacart Beta app while testing our latest features.
Company HQ
The East Cut, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Apoorva Mehta
(Co-Founder & Chairman)Studied Electrical Engineering at University of Waterloo. Worked in Fulfillment Optimisation SDE at Amazon.com before going on to co-found Instacart.
Brandon Leonardo
(Co-Founder)Interned at Cisco Systems as an IT Engineer. Later became a Senior Web Developer at Webs and then a Venture Hacker at Angel List.
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