Staff Software Engineer, Shopper Activation & Engagement

Overview

Instacart’s Shopper Activation & Engagement team owns the complete shopper lifecycle—from activation and onboarding through engagement, earnings, quality and ratings, recognition, retention, and safety. Our mission is to help millions of shoppers get started, succeed, and thrive on our marketplace while ensuring compliance and operational excellence.

We’re looking for a Staff Software Engineer to serve as the Activation Domain Tech Lead. In this role, you’ll define the technical strategy and architecture for critical shopper activation surfaces such as onboarding funnel optimization, waitlist management, supply levers, and compliance systems. You’ll partner closely with Product, Design, Data Science, Operations, Legal, Trust & Safety, and key onboarding vendors to deliver fast, safe, and scalable solutions.

This is a high-impact role where your work directly influences shopper supply, marketplace efficiency, and our ability to scale sustainably while maintaining quality and regulatory standards. If you thrive in fast-moving, highly cross-functional environments and enjoy rolling up your sleeves to solve complex problems at scale, you’ll feel right at home here. We go far together, communicate with candor, and prioritize solutions where everyone can win.

About the Job

• Define and drive the end-to-end technical strategy and architecture for the activation domain, enabling rapid, safe delivery as the roadmap scales to support millions of shoppers.
• Lead product strategy in partnership with Product and Design across onboarding funnel optimization, waitlist management, incentives, and supply levers; set clear OKRs, instrumentation, and experimentation plans.
• Own delivery of business-critical compliance and vendor initiatives (e.g., background checks, identity/eligibility workflows), building auditable, privacy-first systems with strong observability and SLAs.
• Run large, cross-functional programs across multiple engineering and business teams; translate ambiguous requirements into crisp technical plans, manage risk and dependencies, and unblock execution.
• Mentor and develop engineers through design reviews, high-quality code practices, and clear technical standards; raise the technical bar and cultivate the next generation of technical leaders.
• Continuously improve reliability, performance, and cost efficiency of services; establish and enforce SLOs, drive incident learnings, and champion secure-by-default, AI-augmented development workflows.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems, high-traffic services, or mobile backends.
• 3+ years owning end-to-end architecture and technical strategy for a domain or product area, from design through production operations.
• Proven track record leading cross-functional initiatives across 3+ teams and delivering under hard deadlines in ambiguous problem spaces.
• Proficiency in one or more backend languages (e.g., Go, Java, Python) and with modern cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS or GCP) and data stores (e.g., Postgres, DynamoDB, Redis).
• Hands-on experience building AI tooling or agentic automation and integrating AI into developer workflows or product features.
• Experience designing compliant systems involving identity, eligibility, certifications, or similarly sensitive workflows, with privacy and security best practices.
• Demonstrated mentorship and team development experience, including leveling up engineers through design guidance and rigorous code reviews.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience partnering with Legal/Policy on compliance-related projects and navigating evolving labor or regulatory requirements; familiarity with audit trails and policy engines.
• Background in evaluating, integrating, and managing third-party vendors; establishing technical SLAs; and executing zero-downtime migrations and fallback strategies.
• Experience with experimentation platforms, analytics, and growth funnels to improve conversion, supply availability, and utilization.
• Experience building mobile-first products or collaborating closely with iOS/Android teams on shopper experiences.
• Familiarity with trust & safety, fraud/identity, or background screening systems in high-scale marketplaces.
• Experience in marketplace, logistics, rideshare, or gig-economy environments.

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