Senior Software Engineer, Commerce Platform

Overview of the Platform teams that are currently hiring:

Orders 

We are looking for a senior engineer who thrives on solving complex problems and has a passion for system design. As a core part of the Orders team, you will help build the robust platform that orchestrates all commerce on Instacart. Our mission is to ensure seamless, reliable workflows across diverse use cases and fulfillment models while supporting new experiences for our customers, shoppers, and retail partners. The Orders team is the orchestrator of Instacart’s Commerce platform, requiring deep knowledge of cross-functional domains and systems across the company. If you're a big-picture thinker who enjoys working on high-impact projects, this is the role for you!

Stored Value

We are looking for a collaborative and motivated senior software back-end engineer (L5) with a passion for system design. In this role, you will build performant and reliable systems to manage lifecycle processes for non-monetary value (e.g., credits and coupons) within Instacart’s Commerce platform. These systems power millions of incentive transactions that underpin our Affordability pillar, driving growth through high-visibility, high-impact projects. This position is ideal for strong owners who are deeply curious and eager to develop a comprehensive understanding of our domain and business priorities. You’ll use these insights to architect scalable, extensible solutions that adapt to an ever-expanding range of creative incentives-driven initiatives.   You'll join a highly collaborative team of talented engineers who prioritize mentorship, shared growth, and continuous learning. We pride ourselves on a low-overhead, high-autonomy environment where productive design reviews and an outcome-driven approach are core pillars of our team culture.

Loyalty & Membership

We are looking for a skilled, collaborative and highly driven senior software engineer with a passion for system design to join the Loyalty & Membership team. Our team’s mission is to make Instacart affordable for all customers by giving them access to loyalty programs benefits. In this role, you will design, develop and launch loyalty features that will reach millions of customers. This position is ideal for strong owners who are deeply curious and eager to develop a comprehensive understanding of our domain and business priorities. You'll have the chance to work closely with BD, Data Science, Design, Product, and cross-functional engineering teams, taking full ownership of projects from start to finish. Embracing an experiment-driven approach, you'll be able to measure your impact with precision and have numerous opportunities to make a meaningful difference. You'll be joining a highly collaborative team of talented engineers who prioritize mentorship, shared growth and continuous learning. We pride ourselves on a low-overhead, high-autonomy environment where productive design reviews and an outcome-driven approach are core pillars of our team culture.

About the job

• Implement robust back-end services and APIs, writing clean, maintainable, and efficient code. 
• Optimize applications for peak performance and scalability. 
• Validate the technical feasibility of system designs and contribute actively to all development lifecycle phases. 
• Focus on operational excellence with strong test coverage, monitoring, intuitive metrics, and alerting.
• Design scalable and low-latency back-end architectures for high-volume incentive processing systems. 
• Develop solutions that are extensible and can support new business initiatives effectively.
• Coordinate with cross-functional teams to ensure alignment of project goals and schedules.

About you

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Computer Engineering
• 5+ years with back-end development
• 3+ years with system design and architecture
• Proficient in backend languages like Ruby, Python, Java
• Experienced working with database systems such as PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or MySQL
• Experienced using caching mechanisms like Memcached or Redis
• Experience with high scale throughput and distributed systems problems.
• Strong ownership mindset.

Preferred Qualifications

Do you have exceptional experience with, skills for, or just interest in any of the following software engineering areas? We are looking for someone who has a good mix of the following traits:

• Expertise in invoicing and billing processes within an e-commerce environment. This includes being familiar with customer invoices, resolving discrepancies, and managing invoicing cycles. Familiarity with relevant invoicing regulations and tax requirements is beneficial.
• Experience with order management systems (OMS) or eCommerce platforms that handle the end-to-end order lifecycle.  Understanding of the overall eCommerce operations and processes involved in managing customer orders, from the point of placing an order to delivery
• Understanding of various payment systems and methods used in eCommerce, including credit/debit cards, digital wallets, mobile payments, and alternative payment solutions. Familiarity with payment gateways and payment service providers (PSPs) is also valuable
• Experience in eCommerce discounting, including a solid understanding of discount strategies and promotional campaigns. Good knowledge of pricing strategies, discount structures and ability to analyze the financial impact of different discount scenarios and make data-driven decisions.

Instacart's technology is constantly evolving and adapting. Some of the technologies you would use in our teams at Instacart include:

• Ruby on Rails framework using Sorbet for strong-typing
• Client-facing flexible APIs exposed via GraphQL
• Postgres and Snowflake backend relational data stores
• Temporal workflow 
• Async durable event handling infrastructure including async RPC via AWS SNS/SQS, RabbitMQ
• Caching and durable job dispatching using Memcached and Redis
• Auto-scaling elastic service deployments built on AWS ECS, ALBs, and supporting cloud services
• Rich monitoring and alerting infrastructure built on AWS Cloud Watch, DataDog, Sentry, OpsGenie, and supporting services
• Any new integrations you will research, propose, implement, and deploy!