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.
The restaurant industry is incredibly diverse. From sushi bars to neighborhood taquerias, every cuisine and service model brings its own workflows, operational nuances, and customer expectations.
The Strategic Cuisines team is a newly formed team focused on better serving established restaurant segments that require deeper localization, workflow flexibility, and product adaptation. These customers have unique operational needs, and we see significant opportunity to evolve our mobile and device-based experiences to support them even better.
This team operates with a startup mindset inside Toast — partnering closely with customers, identifying opportunities, and iterating quickly to deliver meaningful impact. The problems we’re tackling are not always well-defined at the outset. Success requires curiosity, strong technical judgment, and the ability to make progress in ambiguous spaces.
As a Staff Engineer, you’ll lead technical direction within this team and help shape how we build for this space. You’ll work across teams and domains, connecting mobile experiences to broader platform capabilities to deliver cohesive solutions. You’ll balance speed and experimentation with long-term architectural quality.
We’re looking for someone who is energized by a challenge, comfortable influencing beyond their immediate team, and motivated to deeply understand customer problems before jumping to solutions.
If you thrive in ambiguity, move quickly, and take pride in delivering thoughtful, scalable systems, we’d love to talk.
A day in the life (Responsibilities)
- Lead technical vision and architecture for Android/mobile experiences within Strategic Cuisines
- Design, build, and evolve scalable mobile solutions used in high-volume restaurant environments
- Partner closely with Product and Design to identify customer pain points and translate them into impactful solutions
- Operate effectively in ambiguous problem spaces, helping shape both technical direction and product approach
- Drive engineering excellence and influence best practices across teams
- Mentor engineers and raise the bar for technical leadership
- 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+ years of professional software engineering experience
- Deep expertise in Android development (Kotlin preferred)
- Experience shipping and scaling production mobile applications
- Strong understanding of modern mobile architecture patterns
- Experience integrating with APIs and distributed systems
- Demonstrated technical leadership at a Staff or equivalent level
- Strong communication skills and ability to influence cross-functional partners
- Demonstrated customer obsession — seeks to deeply understand user workflows and uses those insights to inform technical decisions
Special Sauce* (Nice to Have)
- Experience building POS, kiosk, or operational software
- Experience working in early-stage or exploratory product areas
- Experience with localization or internationalization
- Familiarity with AI-augmented development workflows and tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or similar)
- Experience working across the stack — including backend services, APIs, databases, frontend surfaces, and messaging systems — with the ability to connect mobile solutions to broader system architecture
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 strive to provide competitive compensation and benefits programs that help to attract, retain, and motivate the best and brightest people in our industry. Our total rewards package goes beyond great earnings potential and provides the means to a healthy lifestyle with the flexibility to meet Toasters’ changing needs. Learn more about our benefits at https://careers.toasttab.com/toast-benefits.
#LI-REMOTE
The base salary range for this role is listed below. The starting salary will be determined based on skills and experience. In addition to base salary, our total rewards components include cash compensation (overtime, bonus/commissions, if eligible), benefits, and equity (if eligible).
How Toast Uses AI in its Hiring Process
Throughout the hiring process, our goal is to get to know you. We use AI tools to support our recruiters and interviewers with tasks like note-taking, summarization, and documentation of interviews to ensure they can be fully focused on your conversation. All hiring decisions are made by people.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is Baked into our Recipe for Success
At Toast, our employees are our secret ingredient—when they thrive, we thrive. The restaurant industry is one of the most diverse, and we embrace that diversity with authenticity, inclusivity, respect, and humility. By embedding these principles into our culture and design, we create equitable opportunities for all and raise the bar in delivering exceptional experiences.
We Thrive Together
We embrace a hybrid work model that fosters in-person collaboration while valuing individual needs. Our goal is to build a strong culture of connection as we work together to empower the restaurant community. To learn more about how we work globally and regionally, check out: https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast.
Apply today!
Toast is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive hiring process. As part of this commitment, we strive to provide reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities to enable them to access the hiring process. If you need an accommodation to access the job application or interview process, please contact [email protected].
------
For roles in the United States, it is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.
Top Skills
Similar Jobs at Toast
What you need to know about the Los Angeles Tech Scene
Key Facts About Los Angeles Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 375,800; 5.5% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: Snap, Netflix, SpaceX, Disney, Google
- Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, adtech, media, software, game development
- Funding Landscape: $11.6 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Strong Ventures, Fifth Wall, Upfront Ventures, Mucker Capital, Kittyhawk Ventures
- Research Centers and Universities: California Institute of Technology, UCLA, University of Southern California, UC Irvine, Pepperdine, California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, Center for Quantum Science and Engineering

