Senior Backend Engineer, Picnic - Mountain View, CA

About the role

Picnic is reinventing meals at work. We partner with top local restaurants and deliver lunches to companies from 20 to more than 10,000 employees. This allows us to deliver high-quality, individually packaged meals without fees or tips. The result is a joyful experience for employees, teams, and entire organizations. Companies can design their employee food offerings, ranging from simple lunches to sophisticated meal programs. We are obsessing about each company, each customer, each restaurant, and each individual order. Picnic creates a more sustainable model for restaurants, helping local heroes to succeed. Picnic's early business signals have been exceptionally strong. It has been adopted organically by companies from Banking to Manufacturing, from Tech to Government. Customers are discovering and advocating for the product before any marketing Picnic owns the full stack that powers workplace food delivery: client applications for employees, company managers, kitchen operations, and courier operations. AI-powered services are tying them together. This vertical ownership allows us to tightly integrate ordering, logistics, and operations to deliver reliable, cost-efficient services at scale. We are solving one of the most comprehensive, and therefore complex, meal delivery problems. We need YOU to help us build it at scale! We're looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to help architect and scale Picnic's real-time food ordering and operations platforms. This is a high-impact role for someone who enjoys ambiguity, thrives in complex systems, and is excited to iterate and improve real-world operations. You'll work across backend services that support web and mobile surfaces, partner closely with frontend, mobile, product, and operations teams, and help define how we design, build, and scale backend systems at Picnic.

Responsibilities

• Write high-quality, well-tested code in languages like Java and Go, set a strong bar for engineering excellence, and manage and sustain a full software lifecycle
• Lead backend initiatives ensuring scalability and reliability across domains such as food ordering, payments, discounts, and loyalty
• Drive the development with a strong focus on reliability-by-design, observability, and testability
• Design scalable databases, analyze data using SQL
• Mentor and uplevel engineers through technical leadership, reviews, and hands-on collaboration

Requirements

• Proficiency in backend programming languages Java and Go
• Experience with relational and/or NoSQL databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis)
• Experience with cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure
• Understanding of RESTful APIs, microservices, and distributed systems
• A high-performance, hands-on engineer who sets a high bar for code quality, reliability, and operational excellence
• Deep understanding of backend system design, APIs, data stores, concurrency, and distributed systems
• Experience collaborating closely with frontend, mobile, product, data, and business partners
• Passion for product impact and building systems that directly support customers and operators
• Experience building web or mobile applications. Familiarity with frontend and mobile tradeoffs and how backend decisions affect client performance
• Experience with containerization technologies like Docker and Kubernetes
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices
• Track record of improving developer productivity through tooling, patterns, or process improvements
• Why join us
• Massive market opportunity: Online food delivery continues to grow rapidly, creating room for durable, category-defining companies
• Real impact: You'll help reshape how restaurants succeed in delivery while improving everyday experiences for thousands of workers
• Ownership and influence: Customer ordering experience is the face to Picnic's operations
• Strong engineering culture: You'll collaborate closely with experienced engineers and leaders who care deeply about craft, impact, and growth
• What else you need to know
• This role is based in our Mountain View, CA office. We believe the best ideas emerge from close collaboration, especially when building new products and redefining how an industry works. As a result, Picnic requires in-office five days a week for all non-field roles.
• The base salary range for this role is $176,000 - 242,000 per year.
• Actual compensation will be determined on an individual basis and may vary depending on experience, skills, and qualifications.
• Base salary is just one part of your total rewards package. You may also be eligible for equity awards and an annual performance-based bonus.
• Benefits Summary (USA Full-Time Exempt Employees):
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance (multiple plans, incl. HSA options)
• Company-paid life and disability insurance (short- and long-term)
• Voluntary insurance: accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity
• Optional supplemental life insurance

Benefits

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