Instacart
Retail
SeniorEngineeringManager,RetailerPlatform
“Senior Engineering Manager, Retailer Platform at Instacart. Skills: Senior Engineering Manager, Retailer Platform, platform or infrastructure products, multi-tenancy, data isolation, configuration-driven release management, per-retailer extensibility, distributed systems, API/SDK design, cloud infrastructure. Lead, coach, and grow a senior-skewed team of ~12 engineers. Set clear architectural and execution direction”
What You'll Achieve.
allows Instacart's Retailer Platform to scale across the world's largest grocers; bringing products like FoodStorm catering and Caper Carts onto unified Instacart platform rails; enterprise extensibility (sandbox environments, configuration systems, retailer-facing tooling); cross-cutting data isolation work that allows Instacart's ML and Data Engineering teams to safely build per-retailer models on top of the platform; platform matures; consolidation work that replaces bespoke per-vertical services with shared platform rails; how Instacart serves enterprise retailers across multiple commerce surfaces; each surface inherits Instacart's ranking, search, recommendations, and fulfillment; ensuring per-retailer model training has the data, signals, and isolation it needs; lets retailers and internal teams ship without engineering bottlenecks
Industry & Context.
drive clarity in ambiguous scope
What They're Looking For.
Must Have
8+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years managing engineering teams delivering platform or infrastructure products in a B2B or enterprise context, Experience leading teams of 10+ engineers, including hiring, performance management, and career development of senior individual contributors, Demonstrated success operating in ambiguous, high-growth environments where partner roadmaps, product coverage, and integration commitments are still maturing — with a track record of driving clarity and forward motion through that ambiguity, Proven cross-functional leadership influencing outcomes across multiple engineering and product organizations, including comfort using structured escalation to unblock multi-team initiatives, Experience leading multi-team architectural transitions such as consolidation, replatforming, multi-tenancy, or data isolation inside an established business with real customers and revenue, Technical proficiency in distributed systems, API/SDK design, and cloud infrastructure (e. g. , AWS or GCP), Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
Nice to Have
Direct domain experience in commerce platforms, omnichannel retail, OMS, POS, catering systems, or connected-store / in-store technology, Track record of building multi-tenant platforms serving multiple internal or external customers, with per-tenant configuration, isolation, and extensibility requirements, Experience partnering with ML and Data Engineering teams on data platform compliance, model training infrastructure, or data isolation initiatives, Background scaling enterprise integrations and managing partner-facing technical relationships across product, engineering, and customer-facing functions, Experience leading other engineering managers and growing two-layer organizations
What You'll Do.
and grow a senior-skewed team of ~12 engineers
Set clear architectural and execution direction
foster a culture of ownership
and continuous improvement
Set and maintain the unifying technical thesis for the team — multi-tenancy
configuration-driven release management
and per-retailer extensibility
Drive consolidation of bespoke retailer-vertical services — catering order management
smart-cart backend logic
in-store mobile — onto unified Instacart platform rails
Partner with ML and Data Engineering on long-term enterprise data platform compliance for our ML systems
Deliver self-service tooling — including sandbox environments
configuration interfaces
and retailer-facing extensibility
Represent technical and product trade-offs across multiple engineering and product organizations
broker resourcing decisions
drive clarity in ambiguous scope
ensure engineering investment stays aligned with committed work
How You'll Work.
Team & Collaboration
In close partnership with Connected Stores, Pro Services, Commerce, Data Engineering, and ML, you'll broker the architectural and prioritization trade-offs; Represent technical and product trade-offs across multiple engineering and product organizations whose roadmaps and integration commitments evolve; Background scaling enterprise integrations and managing partner-facing technical relationships across product, engineering, and customer-facing functions
Communication Scope
Proven cross-functional leadership influencing outcomes across multiple engineering and product organizations, including comfort using structured escalation to unblock multi-team initiatives
Process & Methodology
Set clear architectural and execution direction, drive clarity in ambiguous scope, ensure engineering investment stays aligned with committed work
Applying for this Senior Engineering Manager, Retailer Platform role?
Most applicants get filtered before a human reads their resume. See if yours makes the cut.
ANONYMOUS · UNFILTERED
What do employees actually say about Instacart?
Real rants from real employees. Read before you apply.