Lead Engineer, Shop Technology

Dutch Bros Coffee•Phoenix, AZ

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Lead Engineer – Shop Technology is a hands-on individual contributor responsible for designing, developing, integrating, maintaining, and supporting technology solutions for Dutch Bros shop operations. The role spans the Shop Technology ecosystem, including point-of-sale, payments, labor systems, shop and mobile applications, order ahead, menu and pricing integrations, and other operational platforms. It provides hands-on engineering leadership for assigned products, integrations, and initiatives in partnership with Product Leads, Operations, engineering teams, and technology vendors. The Lead Engineer builds production-quality solutions, APIs, integrations, and automation; conducts code and design reviews; troubleshoots complex production issues; and guides engineers through implementation and support. The role improves reliability and maintainability by reducing manual processes, strengthening integrations and observability, increasing automated testing, and simplifying recurring operational support. It follows Dutch Bros engineering and architecture standards while contributing practical improvements and reusable patterns. The position is based in Tempe, Arizona, and requires working in the office four days per week, Monday through Thursday. Fridays are optional remote work days.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
6+ years of software engineering experience, including building and supporting enterprise or distributed applications.
Hands-on software development experience with one or more modern programming languages such as Java, C#, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, or similar.
Experience designing, building, and supporting APIs and system integrations.
Strong understanding of REST APIs, messaging, event-driven integration, databases, and distributed-system fundamentals.
Experience integrating third-party SaaS platforms with internally developed applications.
Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS or Azure.
Experience with CI/CD, automated testing, source control, and modern software delivery practices.
Experience with application observability, including logging, monitoring, metrics, alerting, and troubleshooting.
Strong understanding of production support, incident troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, and operational readiness.
Demonstrated ability to automate manual or repetitive technology processes.
Experience applying secure application and integration practices.
Ability to take technical ownership of features, integrations, and production issues from design through implementation and support.
Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to work effectively with engineering, Product, Operations, Support, and external vendors.
Experience mentoring or providing technical guidance to other engineers.
Ability to work in the Tempe, Arizona office four days per week, Monday through Thursday.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting retail, restaurant, hospitality, or other high-volume distributed-location environments.
Experience with point-of-sale, payments, labor management, digital ordering, mobile applications, or shop/store technology.
Experience integrating vendor-managed SaaS products with enterprise technology platforms.
Experience with APIs, event streaming, workflow automation, or integration platforms.
Experience supporting distributed shop/store environments where network resiliency, offline operation, and transaction integrity are important.
Familiarity with PCI, payment security, or other regulated technology environments.
Experience supporting technology solutions used directly by frontline employees or customers.

Responsibilities

Design, develop, test, deploy, and support production-quality software components, integrations, APIs, and automation.
Take technical ownership of assigned Shop Technology features and integrations from requirements through implementation and production support.
Translate product and business requirements into practical technical designs and implementation plans, and develop proof-of-concepts when needed.
Perform code reviews and provide actionable technical feedback; help engineers resolve implementation challenges and improve solution quality.
Build and support integrations across point-of-sale, payments, labor systems, shop applications, order ahead, menu, pricing, and other operational technologies.
Implement retry, reconciliation, error-handling, recovery, and monitoring patterns for integrations.
Reduce unnecessary point-to-point or manual integrations using reusable APIs, events, workflows, and automation.
Troubleshoot integration failures across Dutch Bros applications, vendors, APIs, data flows, and infrastructure.
Monitor and support business-critical Shop Technology applications and integrations.
Implement logging, metrics, alerting, and dashboards for owned solutions.
Participate in production incidents, lead technical troubleshooting within the assigned area, perform root-cause analysis, and implement corrective and preventive actions.
Address recurring production issues through engineering or automation and design for network interruptions, retries, downstream failures, and transaction recovery.
Partner with Technology Support and Operations to improve supportability and reduce recurring escalations.
Apply engineering standards for development, APIs, testing, deployment, documentation, and production support; participate in technical design and architecture reviews.
Promote automated unit, integration, regression, and end-to-end testing; improve CI/CD and deployment practices for assigned solutions.
Ensure solutions meet performance, reliability, maintainability, security, and supportability requirements, and contribute reusable components and practices.
Identify repetitive support activities, manual processes, and fragile operational dependencies, then build automation to reduce effort and improve consistency.
Partner with Product and Operations to identify engineering improvements to shop experience and operational efficiency.
Improve technical documentation and operational runbooks, and simplify existing integrations and application support processes.
Work directly with technology vendors on integration issues, production problems, and technical defects; review vendor APIs, documentation, integration behavior, and proposed solutions.
Validate vendor solutions against Dutch Bros technical and operational requirements and coordinate technical testing and implementation for vendor-managed platforms.
Escalate architectural, reliability, security, or scalability concerns to Staff/Principal Engineers and Engineering leadership when appropriate.
Provide day-to-day technical leadership and mentorship through implementation, code reviews, debugging, production troubleshooting, and engineering best practices.
Break complex technical work into clear implementation approaches, promote knowledge sharing and cross-training, and partner with Staff/Principal Engineers and Architects on broader architectural direction.