Senior Engineering Manager - AI Foundations Team
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Key details
Why this role is notable
Toast is standing up a dedicated internal function to manage how every employee across the company works with AI agents, treating agent adoption as an organizational operations problem that needs its own management layer rather than a set of individual tools.
Job Description
Toast creates technology to help restaurants and local businesses succeed in a digital world, helping business owners operate, increase sales, engage customers, and keep employees happy. Because our technology is purpose-built for restaurants, by restaurant people - and increasingly shaped by AI in both what we build and how we build - restaurants can trust that we'll deliver on their needs for today while investing in the experiences that will power their restaurant of the future.
AI Foundations is Toast's internal platform team for AI. We build the infrastructure, governance, and developer tooling that makes AI a reliable, scalable force multiplier across the entire product development lifecycle. Our products include the LLM Proxy, AI Key Management, Observability pipelines, the Claude Plugin Marketplace, and autonomous agents that participate directly in the software development lifecycle.
We're looking for a Senior Engineering Manager to help lead Internal Agent Experience operations in Ireland and India. You'll contribute to the strategy and delivery for how Toasters across every function work with agents, from the plugins to the agents that are built within the SDLC processes.
A day in the life (Responsibilities)
- Lead and grow a distributed team of engineers across Ireland and India, building an operating rhythm that works across time zones
- Help set the strategy and roadmap for Toast's internal agent ecosystem, covering both developer tooling (coding agents, plugins, skills, MCP servers) and agents for non-engineering functions
- Own delivery of specific components within the internal agent platform from design through production, including the integrations that connect agents to Toast systems and data
- Drive adoption across R&D and the broader company by partnering with our product managers as they conduct customer research
- Establish guardrails for agent usage with Security, Legal and Finance, including access controls, data handling and visibility into AI spend
- Define and report the metrics that matter for the team (e.g., adoption, time saved, quality and cost per outcome) to AI Foundations and R&D leadership
- Stay hands-on with the latest agentic development practices, both to make sound technical calls and to model the way of working the team is enabling
- Champion the use of AI tools and practices to accelerate development, improve team velocity, and pioneer new ways of building - setting the bar for what it means to be an AI-first engineering organization.
What you'll need to thrive (Requirements)
- 5+ years of managing software engineering teams with an extensive background in software development
- Hands-on, daily use of coding harnesses (e.g. Claude Code, Codex) and LLM-based tooling
- The ability to turn fast-moving, ambiguous technology into a clear roadmap and to make prioritization calls with incomplete information
- The ability to communicate and influence at the director and executive level, including with non-engineering functions
- A track record of delivering internal platforms or developer tooling with measurable adoption
- A solid technical foundation in building and operating distributed systems or SaaS products
- Experience leading distributed teams across multiple countries and time zones
Nice to have:
- Experience building or operating MCP servers, agent frameworks or plugin ecosystems
- Experience with LLM cost management, usage analytics or FinOps for AI spend
- Experience building evals or quality measurement for LLM-based systems
- Experience with enterprise integrations such as Slack, Google Workspace, Atlassian or Salesforce
- Experience running enablement or change management programs for technical tooling
AI at Toast
At Toast, one of our company values is that we're hungry to build and learn. We believe learning new AI tools empowers us to build for our customers faster, more independently, and with higher quality. We provide these tools across all disciplines, from Engineering and Product to Sales and Support, and are inspired by how our Toasters are already driving real value with them. The people who thrive here are those who embrace changes that let us build more for our customers; it’s a core part of our culture.
Our Total Rewards Philosophy
We strive to provide competitive compensation and benefits programs that help to attract, retain, and motivate the best and brightest people in our industry. Our total rewards package goes beyond great earnings potential and provides the means to a healthy lifestyle with the flexibility to meet Toasters’ changing needs. Learn more about our benefits at https://careers.toasttab.com/toast-benefits.
How Toast Uses AI in its Hiring Process
Throughout the hiring process, our goal is to get to know you. We use AI tools to support our recruiters and interviewers with tasks like note-taking, summarization, and documentation of interviews to ensure they can be fully focused on your conversation. All hiring decisions are made by people. We ask that you complete interviews and assessments on your own, without real-time AI tools, recording, or transcription bots, unless we tell you otherwise in advance. To learn more: https://careers.toasttab.com/ai-in-hiring
Our Approach to Hybrid Working
We embrace a hybrid work model that fosters in-person collaboration while valuing individual needs. Our goal is to build a strong culture of connection as we work together to empower the hospitality community, regardless of location. Please visit the Locations page on our career site to learn more about our in-office expectations by region: https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast
People Are the Secret Ingredient in Our Recipe for Success
At Toast, our employees are our secret ingredient—when they thrive, we thrive. The restaurant industry brings together people with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, and we value that same breadth at Toast. We strive to build a culture grounded in authenticity, respect, and humility, where every Toaster has a real opportunity to grow, contribute, and do their best work—raising the bar in delivering exceptional experiences for our customers and each other.
Apply today!
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.
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