Director of Software Engineering - AI and Data

About Toast:

Toast is driven by building the restaurant platform that helps restaurants adapt, take control, and get back to what they do best: building the businesses they love.

Every day, many thousands of servers, hosts, and chefs use Toast devices to serve millions of guests in their restaurants. To make our restaurants successful, we need to develop products that install painlessly, work together seamlessly, and quickly guide restaurant staff and Toast team members to resolve any problems that occur. 

And now, more than ever, the Toast team is committed to our customers. We’re taking steps to help restaurants navigate these unprecedented times with technology, resources, and community. Our focus is on building the restaurant platform that helps restaurants adapt, take control, and get back to what they do best: building the businesses they love. And because our technology is purpose-built for restaurants, by restaurant people, restaurants can trust that we’ll deliver on their needs for today while investing in experiences that will power their restaurant of the future. 

This position leads our AI & Data team in Bangalore, with a strong focus in data and AI engineering, and serves as one of the leaders in our global AI & Data team at Toast. If you are a leader who emphasizes team culture, is passionate about fostering team environment that encourages innovation, collaboration, and professional growth, enjoys collaboration with other teams, can think big, and is passionate about building solutions for customers, we would like to talk to you! 

Responsibilities:

• Foster a positive, inclusive, and respectful team environment that encourages innovation, collaboration, and professional growth, aligning with Toast values.
• Collaborating with our Global AI & data team leaders, define and drive the technical vision, strategy, and roadmap for the AI & Data team, aligning with Toast’s business goals.
• Stay at the forefront of the latest innovations in AI, machine learning, and data technologies.
• Provide hands-on technical direction and articulate strong, well-reasoned opinions on architecture, design, and technology choices.
• Oversee the end-to-end lifecycle of AI and data projects, from ideation and design through development, deployment, and maintenance.
• Implement and manage robust project management processes to ensure timely delivery of high-quality solutions.
• Collaborate closely with product leaders, business stakeholders, and other engineering teams to understand requirements, define priorities, and deliver impactful solutions.
• Drive continuous improvement in engineering culture and hygiene, processes, tools, and technologies used by the team.

Do you have the right ingredients*? (Qualifications):

• Bachelor's in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Data Science, AI, or a closely related field. A Master's degree is a plus.
• 15+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 5+ years in a leadership role overseeing AI/ML/Data engineering teams.
• Proficiency in programming languages commonly used in AI/Data/Software engineering.
• Deep experience with tools and best practices for developing model deployment pipelines
• Experience with microservice-based architecture, preferably with AWS tooling (SageMaker, DynamoDB, Athena, etc.)
• Strong competency with the following languages (Java/Kotlin, Python), ML frameworks (scikit-learn, Tensorflow, PyTorch) and distributed computing frameworks (Spark, Ray, Dask)
• Experience in software engineering best practices and tools including object-oriented programming, test-driven development, CI/CD, git, shell scripting, task orchestration (Airflow)
• A proven track record of shipping machine learning solution in production environments at scale
• Exceptional skills in communication, presentation, and interpersonal abilities.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
• High degree of emotional intelligence and empathy.

Bonus:

• Passionate about the restaurant and hospitality industry.