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E-commerce, Food Delivery, Technology

Staff Software Engineer, Web

United StatesHybridFull TimeStaff$265,000–$279,000 /yrPosted 1 month agoVisa sponsorship available

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Role summary

Instacart is seeking a Staff Software Engineer, Web to lead the architecture and technical direction for their Home & Cross-Retailer Search web platform. This high-scope role involves defining frontend system structure, data flow, and performance optimization to ensure fast and reliable customer discovery experiences across thousands of retailers and items. The engineer will drive improvements in Core Web Vitals, SEO, and collaborate with ML and backend teams to deliver personalized search and recommendations. This position also requires mentoring senior engineers and influencing technical strategy across the organization. Experience with modern web technologies like React, TypeScript, and Next.js, along with a strong understanding of large-scale web platforms and performance optimization, is essential. Experience in search, recommendations, or personalization is a plus.

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 Home & Cross-Retailer Search teams are responsible for how customers first discover where and what to shop: from the personalized Home experience to search across thousands of retailers and items. We own the systems that decide which retailers, items, and content to show, how fast they appear, and how well they match customer intent across platforms.

You will own the web platform architecture that powers discovery at scale: defining how our frontend systems are structured, how data flows from server to client, and how we make those experiences fast and reliable across platforms. This is a high-scope role that spans multiple product surfaces and requires close collaboration with engineering, product, design, and machine learning teams.

About the Job

  • Set the technical direction for Instacart's home and search web experiences, including architecture decisions around rendering, data fetching, and client performance.
  • Build innovative features that help customers discover new retailers and deepen engagement with existing ones.
  • Drive improvements to Core Web Vitals, page load performance, and overall frontend health.
  • Improve SEO and organic discovery to help new customers find Instacart.
  • Partner with ML and backend teams to surface personalized, real-time search and recommendations on the web.
  • Mentor senior engineers and grow engineering capability across the team.

    • We're looking for someone who is comfortable with ambiguity, has a bias toward action, and can influence technical strategy across organizational boundaries.

    About You

    Minimum Qualifications

  • Extensive experience in a senior/staff engineer role with a strong focus on web systems design and frontend architecture.
  • Deep expertise in modern web technologies (React, TypeScript, Next.js etc.) with the ability to reason about end-to-end system architecture across client and server.
  • Proven experience designing and operating large-scale web platforms supporting multiple product surfaces.
  • Ability to dive deep into web performance optimization rendering, Core Web Vitals, bundle size, caching strategies, and client-side data fetching.
  • Experience leading engineering design reviews and influencing technical decisions across teams.
  • Experience building web systems used and maintained by large engineering organizations (30+ engineers).
  • Strong communication skills and the ability to influence technical strategy across organizational boundaries.
  • Track record of mentoring engineers and driving long-term technical vision.
  • 10+ years of software engineering experience with a focus on frontend.

    • Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience in Search, Recommendations, Personalization, or related discovery platforms is a huge plus.
  • Experience with hybrid architectures, webview-based client systems, or cross-platform web rendering.
  • Experience partnering closely with machine learning, product, and design teams.
  • Experience building frontend platforms or design systems that support multiple feature teams at scale.
  • Understanding of the online grocery, marketplace, or e-commerce ecosystem.
  • Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science or a related field.

    • #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
    $265,000—$279,000 USD
    WA
    $254,000—$268,000 USD
    OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI
    $243,000—$256,000 USD
    All other states
    $221,000—$233,000 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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