Sr Software Engineer

sweetgreen•Los Angeles, CA

About The Position

At sweetgreen, we’re building the digital backbone that powers how millions of customers order real food every day. As a Senior Backend Engineer on our Digital Customer team, you’ll design, build, and own the backend services that support ordering, loyalty, payments, personalization, and mission-critical vendor integrations. This role is ideal for an engineer who enjoys working deep in distributed systems, cares about reliability and data correctness, and thrives when owning complex services end-to-end—from API design through production observability. You’ll work closely with Product, Frontend, Data, and Infrastructure partners to evolve our platform in ways that scale with both customer growth and business ambition. Why We Need You (WWNY) Sweetgreen’s customer experience depends on backend systems that are resilient, observable, and adaptable. As we expand personalization, loyalty, and real-time ordering capabilities, we need senior engineers who can: Design APIs and services that scale gracefully under peak demand Integrate safely with third-party vendors that sit directly in the ordering flow Raise the bar on reliability, monitoring, and operational excellence Influence architecture decisions that impact multiple teams and domains Your work will directly affect how quickly customers can order, how reliably rewards are applied, and how confidently our teams can build on top of shared systems.

Requirements

Significant professional experience building and owning backend systems in production, with strong proficiency in TypeScript, GraphQL, and AWS
Solid grounding in computer science fundamentals, including object-oriented programming, data structures, algorithms, and system design
Demonstrated ability to solve complex technical problems with pragmatic, scalable solutions
Experience designing and evolving APIs and service contracts that support multiple consumers and use cases
Comfort working within distributed systems, including understanding failure modes, performance trade-offs, and data consistency
A strong sense of ownership and accountability for systems you build, from design through production support
Passion for continuous learning, staying current with evolving backend technologies, and improving engineering practices over time

Nice To Haves

Experience with event-driven architectures, message queues, or asynchronous processing
Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD pipelines, or cloud-native deployment patterns
Experience supporting or integrating with mission-critical third-party vendors
Exposure to frontend systems sufficient to collaborate effectively with client teams (without being frontend-focused)
Experience exploring or integrating AI-powered tools or services, such as LLM APIs, intelligent automation, or developer productivity tooling
Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a willingness to thoughtfully evaluate new tools rather than chase trends blindly
A strong instinct for operational excellence and long-term system stewardship

Responsibilities

Design and own backend services that power core customer experiences, with an emphasis on scalability, fault tolerance, and maintainability
Lead technical design through clear, pragmatic technical design documents (TDDs) and thoughtful trade-off analysis
Build and evolve APIs (primarily GraphQL, with REST where appropriate) that are intuitive, well-documented, and safe to consume across teams
Integrate with external vendors in high-risk, high-impact parts of the customer journey (ordering, loyalty, payments, CRM, etc.)
Improve system observability by implementing telemetry, alerts, and dashboards that enable fast diagnosis and recovery
Champion best practices around data modeling, caching, error handling, and security
Mentor other engineers through code reviews, pairing, and documentation
Partner cross-functionally with Product, Frontend, Data, and Infrastructure teams to deliver end-to-end solutions

Benefits

Highly competitive pay + bonus plan
Three different medical plans to suit your and your family's needs
Dental and Vision insurance
Flexible PTO plan
401k program
Employee HSA and FSA
Complimentary greens
An opportunity to make a real impact on the people around you, both by growing them and by connecting them to real food
To live the sweetlife and celebrate your passion + purpose
A collaborative team of people who live our core values and have your back
A clear career path with opportunities for development, both personally and professionally
Free sweetgreen swag