Principal Software Engineer (AI Pod) - Toast (Hybrid, Dublin)

About Toast

Toast creates technology to help restaurants and local businesses succeed in a digital world. Our purpose-built technology, increasingly shaped by AI, empowers businesses to operate, increase sales, engage customers, and keep employees happy. The AI pod is Toast’s AI-native engineering team, focused on tackling complex, high-impact problems across Toast’s product and platform landscape using AI-first approaches.

This hybrid role is based in Dublin, Ireland, with full relocation provided.

A Day in the Life (Responsibilities)

• Lead full-stack design and delivery of AI-native solutions that address complex, cross-functional problems across Toast.
• Drive technical architecture for pod initiatives, from backend services and APIs to frontend and developer-facing interfaces.
• Build and integrate LLM-powered agents, tools, and workflows into product and platform contexts.
• Set and uphold engineering standards within the pod: code quality, system design, testing, and operational practices.
• Mentor engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and pairing.
• Partner with stakeholders across Toast engineering to define problem scope, align on approach, and deliver outcomes.
• Serve as a technical voice in cross-team architecture discussions, connecting pod work to broader Toast engineering patterns.

What You'll Need to Thrive (Requirements)

• 10+ years of experience designing and delivering scalable software systems, with a strong full-stack background spanning backend services and frontend or developer-facing interfaces.
• Demonstrated experience leading technical architecture for a platform, product, or engineering team.
• Experience building, deploying, or operating LLM-powered agents or AI platform infrastructure.
• Familiarity with AI coding assistants (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) and experience extending them through custom plugins, skills, or hooks.
• Experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol), tool use patterns, or similar agentic integration frameworks.
• Strong prompt engineering skills and intuition for how LLM behavior responds to context and instructions.
• Strong foundation in modern backend (Java, Kotlin, or similar) and frontend (TypeScript, React, or similar) technologies.
• A bias towards action and comfort operating in ambiguous, rapidly evolving problem spaces.

What Will Help You Stand Out

• Familiarity with A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocols and multi-agent orchestration patterns.
• Experience with machine learning concepts, model evaluation, or ML infrastructure.
• Experience building developer experience platforms or internal tooling.
• Familiarity with observability tooling for AI/LLM systems (e.g., Langfuse, DataDog).

AI at Toast

At Toast, we embrace learning new AI tools to build for our customers faster, more independently, and with higher quality. We provide these tools across all disciplines and are inspired by how our employees drive real value with them. Those who thrive here embrace changes that enable us to build more for our customers – it’s a core part of our culture.

Our Total Rewards Philosophy

We offer competitive compensation and benefits programs designed to attract, retain, and motivate top talent. Our total rewards package includes great earnings potential, a healthy lifestyle, and flexibility to meet changing needs. Learn more about our benefits at https://careers.toasttab.com/toast-benefits.

Our Approach to Hybrid Working

We embrace a hybrid work model that fosters in-person collaboration while valuing individual needs. Our goal is to build a strong culture of connection as we work together to empower the hospitality community, regardless of location. Visit the Locations page on our career site for in-office expectations by region: https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

At Toast, our employees are our secret ingredient. We embrace diversity with authenticity, inclusivity, respect, and humility, creating equitable opportunities for all.

Toast is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive hiring process. If you need an accommodation, please contact candidateaccommodations@toasttab.com.