Remote Staff Software Engineer, Shopper Activation & Engagement

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. Overview Instacart’s Shopper Activation 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