Principal Software Engineer, Food & Beverage - Restaurants

Since we opened our doors in 2009, the world of commerce has evolved immensely, and so has Square. After enabling anyone to take payments and never miss a sale, we saw sellers stymied by disparate, outmoded products and tools that wouldn’t work together.

So we expanded into software and started building integrated, omnichannel solutions – to help sellers sell online, manage inventory, offer buy now, pay later functionality, book appointments, engage loyal buyers, and hire and pay staff. Across it all, we’ve embedded financial services tools at the point of sale, so merchants can access a business loan and manage their cash flow in one place. Afterpay furthers our goal to provide omnichannel tools that unlock meaningful value and growth, enabling sellers to capture the next generation shopper, increase order sizes, and compete at a larger scale.

Today, we are a partner to sellers of all sizes – large, enterprise-scale businesses with complex operations, sellers just starting, as well as merchants who began selling with Square and have grown larger over time. As our sellers grow, so do our solutions. There is a massive opportunity in front of us. We’re building a significant, meaningful, and lasting business, and we are helping sellers worldwide do the same.

The Role

The Square Food & Beverage Back of House team is focused on building and maintaining critical back-of-house systems that power modern restaurant operations. Our team develops solutions that support kitchen staff, management, and operational workflows - from food preparation to order fulfillment. We're responsible for systems that handle kitchen display systems (KDS), printer connectivity, kitchen efficiency reporting, and prep workflows. As a Principal Software Engineer on this team, you'll drive large-scale technical initiatives across multiple teams while providing technical leadership in building robust, scalable solutions that directly impact thousands of restaurants' daily operations.

You Will

• Lead the technical vision and architecture for back-of-house restaurant systems, including kitchen display systems, printer connectivity, and operational workflows
• Drive large cross-team technical initiatives that span multiple systems and stakeholders
• Design and implement scalable solutions for kitchen management, reporting, and efficiency tracking
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to team members while fostering engineering excellence
• Architect and build systems that connect various components of restaurant operations, from prep workflows to order fulfillment
• Collaborate with product, design, and engineering teams to deliver high-impact solutions for restaurant operations
• Own and drive technical decisions that impact critical restaurant systems and workflows
• Evaluate and implement solutions for complex system integration challenges
• Build and maintain reliable, high-performance services that restaurants depend on dail

You Have

• 12+ years of software development experience
• Strong system design and architecture skills with experience building distributed systems
• Track record of successfully leading large technical initiatives across multiple teams
• Deep understanding of service integration patterns and best practices
• Experience building reliable, mission-critical systems at scale
• Strong communication skills and ability to influence technical decisions across teams
• [Beneficial] Experience with point-of-sale systems or restaurant technology
• [Beneficial] Background in real-time systems and printer connectivity
• [Beneficial] Experience with reporting and analytics system

Technologies We Use and Teach

• Java, Kotlin, and Go for backend services
• gRPC and REST for service communication
• Kubernetes for container orchestration
• Event-driven architecture patterns
• Monitoring and observability tools
• Distributed systems patterns and practice

We’re working to build a more inclusive economy where our customers have equal access to opportunity, and we strive to live by these same values in building our workplace. Block is an equal opportunity employer evaluating all employees and job applicants without regard to identity or any legally protected class. We will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment in accordance with state and local laws and “fair chance” ordinances.

We believe in being fair, and are committed to an inclusive interview experience, including providing reasonable accommodations to disabled applicants throughout the recruitment process. We encourage applicants to share any needed accommodations with their recruiter, who w