Instacart
Senior Software Engineer II (Payments)
Job Summary
This role involves designing, developing, and maintaining scalable backend systems for payment processing in a high-scale environment. The senior engineer will lead technical projects, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and ensure system security, reliability, and compliance. Qualifications include extensive experience in backend development, distributed systems, and payment technologies, along with strong communication and leadership skills. The position offers flexible, remote work options and benefits such as competitive pay, equity, and health coverage.
Required Skills
Benefits
Job Description
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.
Payments
We're seeking an experienced, impact-driven Senior Software Engineer II to join Instacart's Payments team—a business-critical pillar of our Platform. Processing over $100M every day, Payments operates at the intersection of high performance, regulatory complexity, and rapid innovation. We build reliable, accurate, and scalable systems that power every Instacart transaction.
As a technical leader in Payments, you’ll tackle some of Instacart’s most challenging and rewarding problems: optimizing payment costs, improving payment success rates, launching new payment methods, ensuring accounting precision, and architecting robust integrations with external partners. You’ll collaborate closely with various cross functional, external, and other engineering partners to deliver seamless and secure payment experiences for all users.
Our team values agility and thrives on change. We move fast to adapt to evolving business priorities and consistently deliver at a high bar. You’ll help shape the future of our payments platform, mentor talented engineers, and foster a culture centered on ownership, operational excellence, and continuous improvement.
If you're inspired by high-scale, high-impact work and want to lead in an environment that values strong design, collaboration, innovation, and clear communication, we’d love to chat.
About the Job
- Design, develop, and maintain robust, scalable, and highly available backend systems for payment processing.
- Implement payment-related APIs and services, ensuring security, reliability, and accuracy at every step of the payment lifecycle.
- Lead technical projects that span multiple teams, from initial design to execution and continuous improvement.
- Integrate with external payment processors, gateways, wallets, and financial partners while ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.
- Optimize systems for cost, performance, observability, and operational efficiency.
- Collaborate with cross-functional partners across legal, product, data science, finance, operations, and more.
- Proactively drive platform improvements and initiatives that impact key business metrics.
- Mentor and support fellow engineers, establish best practices, and uphold high standards for code quality and architecture.
About You
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or similar.
- 5+ years of backend engineering experience in high-scale, distributed environments.
- Proficient in backend languages (e.g., Ruby, Go, Java).
- Experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.), caching (Redis, Memcached), and distributed systems.
- Comfortable navigating complex business and technical domains, especially payments, invoicing, billing, or compliance-heavy environments.
- Strong communicator who can lead projects and drive alignment across stakeholders.
- High sense of ownership, capable of working independently, influencing team direction, and mentoring others.
- Strong background in operational excellence: monitoring, alerting, and incident response.
- Hands-on experience driving experimentation and A/B testing when launching new features, with a data-driven approach to measuring and iterating on outcomes.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Expertise in payment infrastructure, payment authorization flows, and reconciliation.
- Experience launching payment methods, optimizing for payment success rates, or managing payment costs.
- Experience designing or operating workflows with Temporal or similar workflow orchestration technologies.
- Track record of driving measurable impact through technical innovation in payments or financial systems.
- Thrive in an AI-first engineering environment, leveraging AI-powered tools as part of your workflow and contributing to the ongoing evolution of best practices that boost team productivity
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. Currently, we are only hiring in the following provinces: Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia.
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 Canadian based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.
Instacart
A grocery delivery service allowing users to order from local stores and have items delivered by personal shoppers.
See more jobsSafe Remote Job Search Tips
Verify Employer Thoroughly
Research the company's identity thoroughly before applying. Check for a professional website with contacts, active social media, and LinkedIn profiles. Verify details across platforms and look for reviews on Glassdoor or Trustpilot to confirm legitimacy.
Never Pay to Get a Job
Legitimate employers never require payment for applications, training, background checks, or equipment. Always reject upfront payment requests or demands for bank details, even if they claim it's for purchasing necessary work gear on your behalf.
Safeguard Your Personal Information
Protect sensitive data like SSN, bank details, or ID copies. Share this only after accepting a formal, written job offer. Ensure it's submitted via a secure company system or portal, never through insecure channels like standard email attachments.
Scrutinize Communication & Interviews
Watch for communication red flags: poor grammar, generic emails (@gmail), vague details, or undue pressure. Be highly suspicious of interviews held only via text or chat apps; legitimate companies typically use video or phone calls.
Beware of Unrealistic Offers
If an offer's salary or benefits seem unrealistically high for the work involved, be cautious. Research standard pay for similar roles. Offers that appear 'too good to be true' are often scams designed to lure you into providing information or payment.
Insist on a Formal Contract
Always secure and review a formal, written job offer or employment contract before starting work or sharing final personal details. Ensure it clearly defines your role, compensation, key terms, and conditions to avoid misunderstandings or scams.