Senior Software Engineer, Support AI
About the role
The Support AI team is building voice and chat systems that handle customer support at scale—helping restaurants resolve issues quickly, often before they ever reach a human. This is high-impact, real-world AI. When these systems work well, customers get unblocked instantly. When they don’t, it directly affects a restaurant’s ability to operate. Accuracy, speed, and reliability aren’t nice-to-haves—they’re critical. We’re early in building these capabilities. Voice AI is launching, chat AI is improving, and we’re learning what actually drives better outcomes as we go. Many of the right answers haven’t been figured out yet. You’ll work in an environment where shipping fast, learning from real interactions, and building systems that scale all have to happen at once. You’ll put things into production to see what works, measure real customer outcomes, and iterate quickly—making pragmatic calls about when to move fast and when to invest for the long term.
You’ll drive projects end-to-end: building and evolving voice and chat systems, improving integrations based on production data, and scaling platforms that handle millions of customer interactions. You’ll work closely with product, support operations, and AI engineering teams to turn ambiguous problems into systems that actually help customers. You’ll navigate integration constraints, messy data, and competing priorities while the platform—and the problem space—continue to evolve. If you’re motivated by building AI systems that work in the real world and want to see your work directly improve how restaurants get help when they need it most, this is a role where you can have immediate, visible impact.
Responsibilities
- Drive end-to-end development of voice and chat AI systems—from concept through production—owning the full lifecycle and iterating based on real customer and operational outcomes.
- Build and evolve integrations with third-party AI platforms and internal Toast systems, making pragmatic decisions that balance speed, reliability, and long-term scalability.
- Design and implement observability, monitoring, and outcome tracking for AI-powered support experiences—using production data to understand system performance and continuously improve customer outcomes.
- Make technical decisions grounded in production data, customer feedback, and operational constraints—navigating ambiguity while building systems that scale.
- Partner closely with product, support operations, and AI/ML engineering teams to translate ambiguous problems and workflows into robust, maintainable systems that drive measurable impact.
- Contribute to technical design and architecture discussions, helping shape system design, tradeoffs, and engineering standards.
- Mentor and support other engineers through code reviews, pairing, and technical guidance, fostering a culture of ownership, quality, and continuous improvement.
Requirements
- 5+ years of experience in software engineering, with a strong background building and maintaining production systems using Java, Kotlin, or other object-oriented languages.
- Proven ability to own complex features or projects end-to-end, from design through production and iteration.
- Experience building integrations with third-party APIs or platforms, especially in domains where reliability, latency, and vendor constraints matter.
- Comfortable working in ambiguity and making pragmatic tradeoffs between shipping quickly and building for scale.
- Strong collaborator who can work effectively across product, operations, and technical teams to deliver customer and business outcomes.
- Proficient with AI tooling such as Cursor, Claude, and MCP servers.
- Self-starter who takes ownership of problems, unblocks themselves, and drives work forward without waiting for perfect conditions.
Qualifications
- BS/MS in Computer Science or related field.
- Experience with machine learning and natural language processing.
- Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure).
- Experience with distributed systems and microservices architecture.
- Experience with testing and debugging in a production environment.
Skills
- Java, Kotlin, Python, or similar programming languages.
- Experience with machine learning frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch, etc.).
- Experience with NLP libraries (spaCy, NLTK, etc.).
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines and automation tools (Jenkins, GitLab CI, etc.).
- Experience with observability and monitoring tools (Prometheus, Grafana, etc.).
- Experience with database systems (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, etc.).
- Experience with version control systems (Git, SVN, etc.).
Benefits
Our total rewards package includes competitive compensation, benefits, and equity. The base salary range for this role is listed below. The starting salary will be determined based on skills, experience, and geographic location.
- Zone A: $159,000—$254,000 USD
- Zone B: $138,000—$221,000 USD
- Zone C: $125,000—$200,000 USD
Pay
The base salary range for this role is listed below. The starting salary will be determined based on skills, experience, and geographic location.
- Zone A: $159,000—$254,000 USD
- Zone B: $138,000—$221,000 USD
- Zone C: $125,000—$200,000 USD
Schedule
We offer a flexible hybrid schedule that allows for both in-office and remote work options. Our goal is to build a strong culture of connection as we work together to empower the restaurant community, regardless of location.
Location
Toast is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive hiring process. As part of this commitment, we strive to provide reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities to enable them to access the hiring process. If you need an accommodation to access the job application or interview process, please contact candidateaccommodations@toasttab.com.
To learn more about our benefits, visit our careers page.
To learn more about how we use AI in our hiring process, visit our AI in hiring page.
To learn more about our approach to hybrid working, visit our locations page.
To learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, visit our diversity, equity, and inclusion page.