Instacart Verified

E-commerce, Food Delivery, Technology

Senior Software Engineer, Data Governance & Foundations

United StatesRemoteFull TimeSenior$199,000–$210,000 /yrPosted 16 days agoVisa sponsorship available

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Role summary

Instacart is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for its Data Governance & Foundations team. This role focuses on building and operating the company's core data ecosystem, including a large-scale data lakehouse, ingestion, and stream processing systems. The engineer will define multi-year architecture roadmaps, own platform initiatives from conception to production, and optimize infrastructure spend. Responsibilities include managing Kafka and Postgres-based systems, partnering with vendors, embedding governance controls (SOX, CPRA, GDPR), and mentoring junior engineers. The ideal candidate has 5+ years of experience in data infrastructure or distributed systems, with expertise in lakehouse architectures, event-driven systems, and technical communication.

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

Instacarts Data Governance & Foundations team builds and operates the core systems that power the company's data ecosystem — a modern data lakehouse at scale, spanning ingestion, stream processing, analytical compute, and self-serve tooling. You'll join a collaborative team of 6–7 engineers responsible for keeping a highly reliable production platform running today while architecting the infrastructure that will serve the business for the next 3–5 years.

This is a high-ownership, high-autonomy role. Architectural decisions carry both technical and financial weight, and you'll be expected to drive direction, not just execute it. You'll work closely with engineering leadership and cross-functional partners across Data Science, ML Platform, Ads Infrastructure, Finance Engineering, and senior stakeholders throughout the organization.

About the Job

Define and drive multi-year architecture roadmaps for large-scale data ingestion and processing infrastructure, setting technical direction that balances reliability, scalability, and cost.

Own end-to-end platform initiatives — from build vs. buy decisions and migration design through production rollout and risk management — across Kafka-based streaming and Postgres-based systems.

Partner with vendors (Snowflake, Databricks, Confluent) on technical integration, contract evaluation, and TCO modeling to inform infrastructure investment decisions.

Collaborate with various teams to embed governance and compliance controls (SOX, CPRA, GDPR) directly into platform architecture and data lifecycle management.

Optimize infrastructure spend at scale: identify cost reduction opportunities across compute, storage, and pipeline efficiency; manage multi-million dollar infrastructure budgets.

Write compelling architecture documents, strategy memos, and proposals that drive alignment with engineering leadership and senior stakeholders across the organization.

Mentor engineers on the team, model strong engineering culture, and help grow a high-performing data infrastructure organization.

Collaborate with Data Science, ML Platform, Ads Infrastructure, Finance Engineering, and Product teams to ensure the platform meets evolving needs.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

5+ years of software engineering focused on data infrastructure or distributed systems at scale, in a high-growth, data-intensive environment.

Experience in modern data lakehouse architectures and open table formats — Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, Hudi — with strong understanding of compute/storage trade-offs.

Hands-on experience with distributed query and compute systems (Trino, Spark, ClickHouse) including performance tuning and production reliability work.

Proven depth in event-driven infrastructure: Kafka for high-throughput data ingestion and Flink (or equivalent) for stream processing at scale.

Track record owning and executing major platform transitions, including migration design, phased rollout, and risk management under production constraints.

Experience building business cases for infrastructure investments: cost-benefit analysis, TCO modeling, and presenting recommendations to leadership.

Exceptional written technical communication — clear architecture docs, strategy memos, and cross-team proposals that drive decisions and alignment.

Strong ownership and comfort operating in ambiguity; ability to drive large, multi-team initiatives from concept to production with organizational influence.

Preferred Qualifications

Familiarity with data governance and compliance frameworks (SOX, CPRA, GDPR) and experience designing governance controls into platform architecture.

Experience with FinOps and data platform cost optimization, including managing large infrastructure budgets and negotiating enterprise vendor contracts.

Deep SQL expertise and strong proficiency in Python or Scala for systems-level work.

Experience with orchestration (Apache Airflow) and transformation pipelines (dbt) in large-scale production environments.

Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

#LI-Remote

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

$199,000—$210,000 USD

$191,000—$201,000 USD

OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI

$183,000—$193,000 USD

All other states

$166,000—$175,000 USD

Sample Instacart interview questions

1
Design a system for real-time sentiment analysis of social media posts.
system designmedium
2
How would you design a global search for products (frontend)?
system designdifficult
3
Develop a secure distributed system for secrets storage and access.
system designmedium
4
Develop a distributed data versioning management system.
system designmedium
5
Design a distributed caching layer for high performance.
system designmedium

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