Instacart

Forward Deployed Engineer

United States - Remote · Senior

Sponsorship not specified$203k-$214kDetected 27 days ago

PythonLLMsRAGAgentic AISupply ChainRecruitingEmbedded SystemsCommunication

About the role

We are a small, senior, field-first pod - part startup, part consultancy - defining the playbook as we go.
As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you are Instacart's hands-on technical presence inside enterprise customer environments.
Extend, adapt, and integrate Instacart's core AI capabilities to fit customer ecosystems, even when those systems are undocumented or non-standard.

Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we're building the team to help push our shopping cart forward.
Design, build, and deploy AI and agentic solutions tailored to each customer's specific infrastructure and needs, across Instacart's full platform suite.
Collaborate closely with the AI Solutions Architect to translate domain requirements and architecture into working software.

10+ years of software engineering experience with a demonstrated ability to write and ship production-quality code.
Proficiency in Python or another scripting/backend language commonly used in data-intensive environments.
Proven ability to integrate with messy, heterogeneous enterprise data environments - undocumented APIs, schema mismatches, auth complexity, and legacy systems that do not behave the way the docs claim.
Strong working knowledge of retail and e-commerce system fundamentals.
Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments where the process is not fully defined.

Prior work in a forward deployed, embedded engineering, or professional services capacity.
Background at a startup or early-stage company where you wore multiple hats.
Experience in enterprise software implementation, systems integration, or solutions engineering.
Exposure to retail tech, e-commerce, or supply chain systems.
Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role.
For US based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.
All other states

Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work.

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.
Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.

Embed with enterprise retail customers and partners to understand their technical environments, data systems, and business workflows.
Serve as the primary technical point of contact for customers during implementation engagements.
We are looking for builders who thrive in the room with customers, treat ambiguity as a puzzle, and can switch between writing code and facilitating a stakeholder conversation in the same afternoon.
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.
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.

This listing is sourced directly from Instacart's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.