People Matter

Staff Software Engineer, Caper

Instacart

Instacart

Software Engineering
United States · Remote
Posted on Oct 23, 2024

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.

About the Role - As a Staff Engineer at Caper by Instacart, you will be at the forefront of our mission to transform the grocery industry by delivering on Instacart’s most innovative efforts. You will own cutting-edge engineering products, working closely with cross-functional teams in Engineering, Product Management, Data Science, Design, and others to design, build and scale new systems. We are looking for driven individuals who thrive in a fast-paced engineering environment, are passionate about quality and improving team performance, and feel comfortable pushing the limits of what is possible. You are able to operate independently and work proactively with various teams across the organization.

Every day we solve incredibly complex problems to create an experience for our users that is absolutely magical. Join us!

About the Team - Caper builds smart shopping carts powered by deep learning and computer vision to enable a seamless grab-and-go retail experience. Caper’s unique technology is a plug-and-play solution that does not require retail store renovation, operational overhaul, heavy compute, and endless image labeling & training. Retailers simply purchase smart shopping carts, and the entire store is upgraded with cashierless capabilities!

Caper is one of the fastest-growing retail automation technology products in the market, costs less than 1% of our competition’s infrastructure, and is already widely adopted in the marketplace. Our Engineering team solves hard product and infrastructure problems that enable wide-scale deployment of Caper smart carts.

About the Job

  • Lead System & Feature Design: Spearhead the development and maintenance of our Retailer Enablement tooling suite that allows retailers to grow and manage their fleet of Caper smart carts.
  • Build workflow systems that detect and mitigate potential theft using industry-leading computer vision systems.
  • Improve our tooling to manage the fleet of carts to ensure it meets scalability and efficiency requirements.
  • Build abstractions and self-serve tooling that allow us to onboard new retailers smoothly
  • Mentor & Lead Teams: Provide guidance and mentorship to engineering teams, advocating for best practices and leading by example in all development initiatives.
  • Work closely with Software Engineers, Product Managers, Product Designers, and Data Scientists to set project objectives and metric-based success criteria.
  • Foster a culture of teamwork and shared goals, creating a collaborative team environment and driving the right level of process to ensure efficiency and high-quality delivery within the project team.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

  • 10+ years of software development experience, preferably in a full stack environment
  • A strong sense of ownership, self-motivated and enjoy the fast pace of a startup environment
  • Strong knowledge of Java, Kotlin, Go, Ruby, or Python, Javascript and experience with AWS/GCP Infrastructure
  • Ability to balance a sense of urgency with shipping high quality and pragmatic solutions

Preferred Qualifications

  • Previous experience building enterprise-facing features
  • Previous experience with hybrid HITL systems, Computer Vision, or Machine Learning
  • Previous experience with fleets of IOT systems and building application stacks on top of them
  • Track record of operating across multiple teams and functions to successfully deliver outcomes
  • Previous experience with React frontend applications and deploying them into complex environments

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.

CA, NY, CT, NJ
$255,000$283,000 USD
WA
$245,000$272,000 USD
OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI
$234,000$260,000 USD
All other states
$212,000$235,000 USD