Senior Technical Program Manager, Cost Management

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. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. 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.

Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table.

Instacart is a Flex First team

There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. 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. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.

About the Role 

This role offers the exciting opportunity to leverage your technical expertise and leadership skills to drive programs that enhance our products, applications, platforms, and ultimately, the experiences of millions of customers, shoppers, and partners. As a Senior Technical Program Manager for Cost Management at Instacart, you will be at the forefront of driving R&D Cost management initiatives enabling us to hit our Financial targets. You will fully own programs, working closely with cross-functional teams in Engineering, Product Management, Data Science, Design, Corporate Finance and others to define requirements, manage execution, mitigate risks, and deliver on time with high quality outcomes. We are looking for driven individuals who thrive in a fast-paced engineering environment, are passionate about quality and improving team performance, and feel comfortable making decisions on scope and technical trade-offs as well as building executive-level narratives. You are able to operate independently and work proactively with various teams across the organization. 

Join us in leading the digital transformation of the grocery industry and delivering innovative, next-generation experiences to our customers.

 

About the Team 

The Technical Program Management team is an integral part of the Instacart Engineering organization. We bring teams together to tackle big problems and lead Instacart’s products, platform, and operational excellence forward. Our work and its impact span the multi-sided marketplace, from connecting customers with coupons and deals for their favorite brands, unlocking new ways to shop for and deliver groceries, to evolving our ML/AI and data infrastructure at Instacart, and more. We are trusted to deliver on Instacart’s strategy at scale, unravel dependencies, and promote the strong collaboration and communication that enables teams across the company to achieve more together.

 

ABOUT THE JOB

• Lead execution of programs delivering on the cost management strategy for R&D with a high degree of ambiguity, complexity, and visibility demonstrating a strong sense of urgency, efficiency, and ownership.
• Work closely with Engineering, Product, Corp Finance and other cross-functional leaders to set clear goals and  success criteria for teams related to our vendor spend. 
• Create team-level budgets, gather technical inputs required for critical Accounting and Tax deliverables and develop program management improvements to influence cost strategy for R&D. Previous experience in managing complex multi-org budgets and/or programs end-to-end is useful.
• Own clear and effective communication with stakeholders, ensuring alignment on and awareness of priorities, risks, and changes. 
• Foster a culture of teamwork and shared goals, creating a collaborative team environment and driving the right level of process to ensure efficiency and high quality delivery within the program team.
• Contribute broadly to Instacart’s success by suggesting and driving organization-wide initiatives.

 

ABOUT YOU

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of work experience post-graduation in a technology field or strategic finance role, preferably as a technical program or project manager, product manager, strategic financial analysis, or related technical/analytical discipline.
• A strong communicator with the ability to distill multi