PrincipalSoftwareEngineer-AIPod

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. Because our technology is purpose-built for restaurants, by restaurant people - and increasingly shaped by AI in both what we build and how we build - restaurants can trust that we'll deliver on their needs for today while investing in the experiences that will power their restaurant of the future. An AI pod is Toast's AI-native engineering team, a focused pod of specialists who tackle complex, high-impact problems across Toast's product and platform landscape using AI-first approaches. As a Principal Software Engineer, you'll work full-stack across ambitious, cross-cutting initiatives, bringing deep technical expertise and architectural judgment to some of the hardest problems at Toast. A day in the life (Responsibilities) Lead full-stack design and delivery of AI-native solutions that address complex, cross-functional problems across Toast Drive technical architecture for pod initiatives, from backend services and APIs to frontend and developer-facing interfaces Build and integrate LLM-powered agents, tools, and workflows that bring AI capabilities directly into product and platform contexts Set and uphold engineering standards within the pod: code quality, system design, testing, and operational practices Mentor engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and pairing Partner with stakeholders across Toast engineering to define problem scope, align on approach, and deliver outcomes Serve as a technical voice in cross-team architecture discussions, connecting pod work to broader Toast engineering patterns What you'll need to thrive (Requirements) 10+ years of experience designing and delivering scalable software systems, with a strong full-stack background spanning backend services and frontend or developer-facing interfaces Demonstrated experience leading technical architectur