Senior Software Engineer, Instacart
Caching
$187-250k
Salary dependent on location. + New hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants
Online grocery marketplace & grocery tech platform
Be an early applicant
Online grocery marketplace & grocery tech platform
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$187-250k
Salary dependent on location. + New hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants
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
- 7+ years of working experience as a software engineer in one or more large-scale cloud services or application development environment
- 2+ Years working with AWS Elasticache with a strong knowledge of SQL
- 1+ Years experience building cloud-based control-plane software
- Self-motivation and an enjoyment for a growth-oriented startup environment
- A strong sense of ownership that drives improvements for customers as well as automation and scale for the systems
- The drive & ability to dive deep into technical challenges and champion root causes, solving problems correctly
- You enjoy being highly productive, shipping code, reviewing others’ PRs and iteratively guiding code bases towards best practices and excellence
- You are able to scale yourself effectively via junior engineers and accelerate the team through effective designs, written & communication, delegation, establishing standards & best practices, code reviews
- Strong ability to architect and design systems using common back-end Web technologies (such as Go, Ruby on Rails, Python, etc) in a production environment
- An ability to balance a sense of urgency with shipping high quality and pragmatic solutions
- Experience working with a large codebase on a cross functional team, with a knack for driving alignment across teams and stakeholders
Desirable
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, computer engineering, electrical engineering
- You are a mentor to other software engineers, helping equip them and grow as software development professionals
- You like solving the kind of high-impact, org-wide problems that involve tackling abstract challenges and turning them into concrete programs that deliver successfully
What the job involves
- You will have the opportunity to own and build a whole new set of foundational engineering components in an open collaborative environment serving millions of requests daily
- You will be the technical lead of a small team, with a large amount of ownership and autonomy for setting technical direction, reporting to a senior engineering manager
- You will work closely with other application engineering teams and internal stakeholders, owning a large part of the process from problem understanding to shipping the solution
- You will ship high quality, scalable and robust solutions with a sense of urgency
- You will have the freedom to suggest and drive high-impact initiatives related to Caching solutions that unlock new innovations, accelerate application development, create resiliency & high-availability, and right-size storage needs company-wide
- Languages: Go, Ruby, Python and Rust
- Platforms: RDS Postgres, DynamoDB, Elasticache (Redis/Valkey/Memcd), Elasticsearch, EC2 and selected GCP services
- Observability and Analytics: Datadog, Cloudwatch, Sentry and Snowflake
- If you have experience with these technologies, you will have the opportunity to dive deeper. If you haven't used these technologies you will have the chance to learn from the collective experience of our team
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 values
- Go far together
- Roll up your sleeves
- Grow the pie
- Put it all on the table
- Serve generously
Company HQ
The East Cut, San Francisco, CA
Articles
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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