Staff Software Engineer - Retail

Toast creates technology to help restaurants and local businesses succeed in a digital world, helping business owners operate, increase sales, engage customers, and keep employees happy. Toast is building the all-in-one platform that helps restaurants and local businesses thrive in a digital-first world. As Toast expands beyond restaurants, our Retail team is redefining how we serve modern retail businesses — from inventory and supplier management to purchase orders and beyond. The Retail Experience (RXP) team is a high-impact group focused on making Toast feel truly built for retail. While adoption has grown, we consistently hear that the experience doesn’t yet fully meet the expectations of retail operators. RXP exists to close that gap. Our mission is to identify friction across the end-to-end retail journey — from onboarding to daily operations — and deliver cohesive, retail-first improvements across Toast’s ecosystem. We work across the Retail module and the broader platform to ensure customers feel supported from day one through long-term success. As a Staff Backend Engineer on RXP, you’ll play a critical role in shaping the systems and services that power these experiences — ensuring they are scalable, reliable, and deeply aligned with customer needs. A day in the life (Responsibilities) : As a Staff Software Engineer on the Retail Experience team, you’ll operate as a technical leader and systems thinker, driving backend architecture and execution across a broad set of initiatives: Architect and build scalable, reliable backend systems that power retail-first experiences across Toast’s platform. Identify and address gaps in existing services, improving performance, data consistency, and system cohesion across the retail journey. Collaborate closely with Product, Design, Frontend, and Platform teams to deliver seamless, end-to-end customer experiences. Lead technical design discussions and influence architectural decisions that align with long-term retail strategy. Prototype and iterate quickly on new ideas, incorporating direct customer feedback and real-world usage. Mentor engineers and elevate engineering standards across the team, fostering a strong culture of ownership and technical excellence. Drive improvements in observability, reliability, and operational maturity of backend systems. Stay curious and continuously explore new technologies and patterns to improve system design and developer productivity. Leverage cutting edge AI tools to enhance your development workflow, improve velocity, and help pioneer new approaches to building - contributing to a culture of innovation and productivity across the team. What you'll need to thrive (Requirements) 8–10+ years of experience building and operating production backend systems at scale. Strong proficiency in Java, Kotlin, or similar object-oriented languages. Deep experience designing distributed systems, APIs, and data models. Strong understanding of system design tradeoffs (scalability, consistency, latency, fault tolerance). Experience building and evolving RESTful APIs and/or event-driven architectures. Proven ability to collaborate cross-functionally and deliver end-to-end features. Experience mentoring engineers and influencing technical direction beyond your immediate team. Passion for clean, maintainable, and observable systems. Comfortable operating in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment with a startup mindset. AI at Toast At Toast, one of our company values is that we're hungry to build and learn. We believe learning new AI tools empowers us to build for our customers faster, more independently, and with higher quality. We provide these tools across all disciplines, from Engineering and Product to Sales and Support, and are inspired by how our Toasters are already driving real value with them. The people who thrive here are those who embrace changes that let us build more for our customers; it’s a core part of our culture. Our Total Rewards Philosophy We st