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Senior Software Engineer

San Francisco, California, United States

Instawork is on a mission to create meaningful economic opportunities for skilled hourly professionals in communities around the globe. Our AI-powered labor marketplace helps local businesses scale, and enables global technology companies to push the frontiers of robotics and AI. Backed by world-class investors like Benchmark, Spark Capital, Craft Ventures, Greylock, Y Combinator, and others, we’re looking for exceptional talent to reimagine the way the world works.

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to contribute to the development of next-generation products as a key team member driving impactful features from concept to production. You will collaborate across engineering, product, and design to translate business requirements into clear, scalable technical solutions, leveraging modern methodologies—including AI where it aligns with product scope—to deliver high-quality products and efficient software workflows.

You are someone who thrives in ambiguous problem spaces, has strong product instincts, and can translate customer needs into technical solutions that drive business outcomes.

Who You Are:

  • 5+ years of professional experience with a focus on high-growth product environments
  • Strong coding and architectural proficiency—you prioritize moving quickly down the right path to ship reliable code daily
  • Full-stack proficiency—comfortable across backend services, APIs, and modern frontends (React, Angular, or Vue.js)
  • Strong product instincts—you translate customer needs into technical solutions that drive business outcomes
  • AI-First mindset—expertly using AI coding tools to accelerate delivery without compromising architectural integrity
  • Agile execution—you understand the lifecycle of a feature from local branch to production monitoring

Nice to Have

  • Fluency in our core stack (Django, Python, React, and React Native)—accelerates time-to-impact and onboarding
  • Experience with advanced deployment patterns—leveraging feature flags, config-driven behavior, and progressive rollouts
  • Exposure to LLM-based systems—includes prompt engineering, tool-call architectures, or agent workflows
  • Domain experience in two-sided marketplace or recruitment platforms

What You'll Do:

  • Product Delivery – Collaborate with PMs and designers to translate customer needs into technical solutions and shape product requirements.
  • Write Quality Code – Ship code that follows engineering best practices (DRY, maintainable) and is production-safe after code review.
  • Collaborate Cross-Functionally – Work closely with Product, Design, and Data partners to ensure project alignment from concept through deployment.
  • Drive Personal Growth – Proactively seek opportunities to sharpen skills through code reviews and architectural deep-dives with senior engineers.
  • Own Features End-to-End – Drive feature development from coding through deployment, monitoring, QA, and iteration based on user feedback.
  • Advocate for Best Practices – Champion engineering excellence and contribute to continuous improvement in developer tooling and experience.
  • Contribute Technical Input – Provide input on team technical design, balancing short-term delivery with long-term scalable solutions.
  • Practice Clear Communication – Communicate effectively through clear PR descriptions and proactively surfacing blockers before they become critical problems.

For CA-based Applicants:

  • The base salary for this position is $170,000 - $200,000.
  • This position is eligible for equity in the form of stock options
  • This position is eligible for Instawork benefits, including:
    • A variety of medical, dental, and vision plans with coverage beginning on the date of hire
    • Flexible paid time off
    • At least 8 paid company holidays annually
    • Phone stipend
    • Commuter stipend
    • Supplemental pay on qualified leaves
    • Employee health savings accounts (HSA) contribution
    • Flexible spending plans
    • 401K plan
    • Perkspot - discount program through Lumity

A variety of factors are considered when determining someone’s compensation including a candidate’s professional background, experience, and location.  Final offer amounts may vary from the amounts listed above.

#LI-Onsite  

Our Values 

  • Empathy, Trust & Candor
    We put ourselves in the shoes of our colleagues and customers and don’t shy away from uncomfortable conversations, instead building trust through honest and direct feedback.

  • Bias for Action
    We practice high-velocity decision-making, clear-eyed that we often operate with incomplete information. Growing quickly means it’s OK to be wrong, so long as we learn from our mistakes and course correct!

  • Always Be Learning
    We’re a curious bunch, and with AI transforming our workplace we encourage everyone to learn from each other, compounding our knowledge and experience to help us change an entire industry.

  • Act Like an Owner
    We work long, hard, and smart, building products that delight our users and drive growth. Your ability to impact Instawork is limited only by your courage and conviction, not your job description.

About Instawork

Founded in 2015, Instawork is the nation’s leading online labor marketplace for food services, hospitality, light industry, and logistics, connecting more than 7M skilled workers with local restaurants, hotels, warehouses, stadiums, and more. Our AI-powered platform serves thousands of businesses across more than 50 major markets in the United States and Canada. We're not just helping fill shifts, we're supporting local economies—and we're just getting started!

Instawork has been featured by CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press. Forbes included us on their Next Billion Dollar Startups list; RetailTech Breakthrough named us Workforce Hiring Solution of the Year for 2025; and Inc. 5000 recognized us as one of the country's top 10% fastest-growing companies two years in a row. But what matters most is our impact. We're solving real problems for real people, and we’re doing it at scale.

Join our team to help us build something that matters! We’re looking for superstars who want to help us shape the future of work. With hubs in San Francisco, Bangalore, and Chicago, city offices in New York, Phoenix, and Singapore, we're back to working together in-person five days a week because we believe the best ideas happen when great people collaborate face-to-face. We also value diverse perspectives and encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds.

Ready to make an impact? Learn more at www.instawork.com/about.

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