Director of Software Engineer, Shopper Experience
Instacart
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
Instacart’s Shopper Experience organization powers the end-to-end lifecycle of the shoppers who pick, pay for, and deliver orders for our customers—spanning signup, activation, engagement, access to work, in-store picking and checkout, delivery, pay, and labor compliance.
We’re seeking a Director of Engineering to lead this multi-team organization, partnering closely with Product, Design, Data Science, Operations, Legal, and peer engineering leaders across Fulfillment, Enterprise Fulfillment, Logistics, and Customer domains. You will guide strategy and execution for a critical product surface that directly shapes shopper satisfaction, operational reliability, and customer outcomes.
This role offers the opportunity to lead 50+ software engineers across four teams, delivering complex mobile and backend systems at scale, and drive measurable impact on core marketplace health. Preferred location is San Francisco, CA but open to remote in the US or Canada.
About the Job
- Own the engineering strategy, architecture, and execution for the shopper lifecycle, covering onboarding and activation, engagement and access to work, the in-store “work” experience (picking and checkout), delivery, earnings, and labor compliance.
- Lead, develop, and scale a high-performing organization of roughly 50 engineers across multiple teams; manage and mentor engineering managers, set clear goals, and evolve org design to meet business needs.
- Partner cross-functionally with Product, Design, Data Science, Operations, Legal, and peer engineering orgs (Fulfillment, Enterprise Fulfillment, Logistics, Customers) to define roadmaps and deliver end-to-end outcomes that balance shopper experience, marketplace efficiency, and compliance.
- Raise the bar on quality of service across mobile and backend systems—establish and meet SLOs/SLAs, drive reliability and performance, strengthen on-call/incident practices, and implement quality gates for releases.
- Ship compelling mobile product experiences at scale with a disciplined release cadence, thoughtful experimentation, and a data-informed approach to improving key metrics such as time to first batch, batch acceptance and completion rates, reliability, on-time delivery, and earnings transparency.
- Foster an inclusive, collaborative culture rooted in clear communication, accountability, and continuous improvement; thrive in a fast-paced environment where priorities can evolve rapidly.
About You
Minimum Qualifications
- 15+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 5+ years leading multi-team engineering organizations and managing engineering managers.
- Proven track record leading organizations of 50+ engineers delivering large-scale, mobile centric consumer or marketplace products.
- Experience building and shipping high-quality mobile products (iOS and/or Android) in close partnership with Product and Design, alongside scalable backend services.
- Demonstrated ownership of service quality, including setting and achieving availability, latency, and reliability targets; experience running robust on-call and incident management programs.
- Strong people leadership with a history of hiring, developing, and retaining top engineering talent; adept at goal setting, performance management, and org design across multiple teams.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
Preferred Qualifications
- Hands-on familiarity with backend systems, machine learning applications, and data platforms supporting real-time decisioning and personalization.
- Experience operating in real-time marketplace or logistics environments (for example, rideshare, delivery, or two-sided marketplaces).
- Success building or scaling mobile products and platforms at high scale with millions of users and 24/7 operations.
- Background in scheduling, routing, or dispatch systems that optimize for reliability, efficiency, and fairness.
- Advanced degree in a technical field (Computer Science, Engineering, Operations Research) or equivalent experience leading complex, data-rich systems.
#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.