Senior Manager, Software Engineering

Instacart's Logistics organization powers the end-to-end fulfillment engine behind our four-sided marketplace. The Logistics Serving team is the backbone of order fulfillment, operating core systems that Shoppers, Customers, Retailers, and internal teams rely on every day including Dispatching and Assignments, Geospatial and Mapping, Service Options, Shopper Pay and Consumer Pricing, and ML Foundations interfaces.

We're seeking a Senior Manager, Software Engineering to directly lead the Logistics Serving team, guide technical strategy, and deliver reliable, scalable, and flexible systems that support Fulfillment for the decade ahead. You'll partner closely with Logistics Foundations to build platform capabilities, collaborate with adjacent Logistics teams to drive growth and efficiency, and work with enterprise teams to deliver sustainable retailer customizations.

This is a highly technical leadership role. You'll dive deep into service architectures, code, engineering designs, metrics, and incident data, and facilitate rigorous technical discussions that elevate the bar for reliability and product velocity. You will directly manage 10+ engineers, collaborate with PMs, data scientists, and operations partners, and influence a broader org of 75-80 engineers within Logistics. This role is remote-friendly across the US and Canada, with a preference for the SF Bay Area or Toronto.

About the Job

• Lead, develop, and retain a team of 10+ software engineers; set goals, grow careers, and foster a healthy, inclusive, high-performance culture.
• Own multi-quarter roadmaps for core Serving surfaces (e.g., Dispatching and Assignments, Geospatial/Mapping, Service Options, Shopper Pay/Consumer Pricing, ML Foundations), delivering measurable reliability, scalability, and cost-efficiency improvements.
• Partner closely with Logistics Foundations and adjacent Logistics teams to design platform capabilities and interfaces that unlock experimentation, speed, and long-term maintainability.
• Engage deeply in technical design and execution review designs and code, drive architectural decisions, define SLOs, establish observability standards, and oversee on-call and incident response.
• Collaborate with PMs, data scientists, and enterprise partners to shape sustainable retailer customizations and marketplace policies that drive growth and operational efficiency.
• Prioritize and manage inbound requests across a horizontal surface area, creating clarity, sequencing complex programs, and delivering outcomes in a fast-moving environment with evolving priorities.

About You
Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• 4+ years of experience directly managing software engineers, including hiring, performance management, and career development.
• Hands-on experience building and operating large-scale distributed backend services.
• Proven track record defining and delivering multi-quarter roadmaps with measurable outcomes.
• Experience designing, operating, and scaling services with defined SLOs, on-call ownership, robust observability, and incident response practices.
• Demonstrated excellence in written and verbal communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with modern AI developer tools and AI product integration techniques.
• Background working on multi-sided marketplace problems at scale.
• Technical experience with one or more of: Ruby on Rails, Python, Golang, Postgres, Redis, AWS.
• Experience with sensitive systems such as pay or pricing, and related compliance (e.g., SOX, GDPR, applicable government policies).
• Familiarity with industry-standard ML infrastructure practices and libraries.
• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field.

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