Instacart

Engineering Manager, Order Experience

Instacart$192K — $202K *
US-AnywhereRemote in United States
Consumer Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 7+ years of software engineering experience, including 2 years in management leading teams of 8+ engineers.
  • Proven track record in owning and scaling backend systems in high-traffic production environments.
  • Strong experience managing complex cross-functional dependencies and communication.
  • Ability to drive technical roadmaps that blend platform modernization with timely product delivery.
  • Demonstrated success in hiring, retaining, and developing engineering talent.

Responsibilities

  • Lead and expand a team of engineers focused on critical order management systems.
  • Act as the primary engineering liaison for 10+ partner teams, overseeing integration and prioritization.
  • Promote platform modernization while maintaining product delivery pace and quality.
  • Oversee all engineering execution, from strategic alignment to team development.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to shape the future of order infrastructure.

Benefits

  • Remote work flexibility with a 'Flex First' policy.
  • Investment in employee growth through hiring and career development.
  • Equity grants available for new hires and annual refresh grants.
Full Job Description
Overview

Instacart is the North American leader in online grocery and one of the fastest-growing companies in e-commerce. Since 2012, we've been working toward creating a world where everyone has access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Behind every seamless order is a foundation of complex systems working in perfect coordination and the Order Experience team is at the heart of it all.

The Order Experience team owns some of the most mission-critical infrastructure at Instacart, including checkout architecture, order management, and post-order quality. These systems sit at the intersection of nearly every major product initiative across the company, making this team a foundational dependency for how Instacart delivers value to customers, shoppers, retailers, and brand partners alike.

We're looking for an Engineering Manager to lead this team of 8+ engineers and bring both strategic vision and hands-on technical leadership to a domain where reliability, scalability, and conversion all matter. This is a role for someone who thrives in complexity, knows how to balance long-term platform thinking with near-term shipping, and can navigate a high-volume, cross-functional environment with clarity and confidence.
About the Job
  • Lead and grow an engineering organization of 8+ engineers responsible for checkout architecture, order management, and post-order quality. These systems are foundational to Instacart's core customer experience and directly impact conversion and reliability at scale.
  • Serve as the primary engineering point of contact for 10+ partner teams across the organization, managing high-volume intake, setting clear prioritization frameworks, and ensuring Order Experience remains a reliable, well-scoped dependency for every major launch at Instacart.
  • Drive platform thinking across the team by identifying opportunities to rebuild and modernize foundational systems without sacrificing the pace of shipping customer-facing value, and making principled trade-offs between short-term delivery and long-term architectural health.
  • Own engineering execution end to end: from roadmap alignment and technical strategy to team health, hiring, and career development for a high-performing group of engineers navigating a fast-moving, high-stakes domain.
  • Partner closely with product, design, data science, and cross-functional engineering leaders to define the future of order infrastructure to influence how Instacart scales its checkout and fulfillment systems as the business continues to grow.
About You
Minimum Qualifications
  • 7+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 2 years in an engineering management role leading teams of 8 or more engineers
  • Demonstrated experience owning and scaling backend systems in a high-traffic, production environment, including systems related to e-commerce, order management, checkout, or similar transactional domains
  • Proven ability to manage complex cross-functional dependencies across multiple partner teams simultaneously, with strong prioritization and stakeholder communication skills
  • Experience driving technical roadmaps that balance platform modernization with continuous product delivery in a fast-paced environment
  • Track record of hiring, retaining, and developing engineering talent, including performance management and career growth conversations
Preferred Qualifications
  • Experience in a high-growth e-commerce or marketplace company where engineering systems are directly tied to revenue and conversion outcomes
  • Familiarity with checkout or payment infrastructure, order lifecycle management, or post-order quality systems at scale
  • Strong platform and systems thinking, experience leading architectural migrations or re-platforming efforts while maintaining system reliability and team velocity
  • Comfort operating as a force multiplier across a large, distributed organization where your team's systems enable the work of many others

#LI-Remote

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.

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 US based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.

CA, NY, CT, NJ

$230,000-$242,500 USD

WA

$220,000-$232,000 USD

OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI

$211,000-$222,500 USD

All other states

$192,000-$202,500 USD

About Instacart

Instacart is an American company that operates a grocery delivery and pick-up service in the United States and Canada. The company offers its services via a website and mobile app. The service allows customers to order groceries from participating retailers with the shopping being done by a personal shopper. Instacart was founded in 2012 by entrepreneur Apoorva Mehta, a former Amazon.com employee. Apoorva was born in India and moved with his family to Canada in 2000. He studied engineering at the University of Waterloo and graduated in 2008. He was a participant in Y Combinator's Summer 2012 batch, which eventually led to the creation of Instacart. In 2013, Mehta was included on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Apoorva previously worked at BlackBerry, Qualcomm, and then Amazon as a supply chain engineer, where he developed fulfillment systems to move packages from Amazon's warehouses to customers' homes. Before founding Instacart, Apoorva had tried to start at least 20 other services. He tried building an ad network for social gaming companies, and developing a social network specifically for lawyers, among other start-ups. Instacart originally launched in San Francisco. By April 2015, the firm had about 200 employees. It introduced a new policy around June allowing some shoppers to choose to be part-time employees, starting with Chicago and Boston and extending its offer to shoppers in Atlanta, Miami, and Washington D.C. the following month.
Learn more about Instacart
Industry
Founded
2012

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