Staff Platform Engineer

Department: Engineering

Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States, Remote, Raleigh, North Carolina, Royal Oak, Michigan, United States

Compensation: $180K – $225K • Offers Equity

Employment Type: FullTime

About SpotOn

We’re not just building restaurant tech, we’re giving independent restaurants the tools to compete and win. From our award-winning point-of-sale to AI-powered profit tools, everything we do helps operators boost profit, work smarter, and keep their best people. And every solution is backed by real humans who actually give a sh*t about helping restaurants succeed.

• Named the #1 Restaurant POS by G2 (Fall 2025), based on ratings from real users

• Rated the top-rated point-of-sale (POS) for restaurants, bars, retail, and small businesses by Capterra users

• Awarded Great Places to Work and Built In’s Best Workplaces for multiple years running

We move fast, care hard, and fight for independent restaurant operators to do what they love, and love doing it. If you’re looking to make an impact with heart and hustle, SpotOn is the place for you.

The Infrastructure Compute team is seeking a Staff Platform Engineer to help define and drive the future of our compute platform. Our mission is to provide a scalable, reliable, and cost-efficient Compute foundation that powers all services across SpotOn. We own the Kubernetes infrastructure, node lifecycle management, autoscaling systems, and the compute primitives that engineering teams depend on every day.

Now we’re taking on something new. As AI becomes central to how software gets built and operated, we’re looking to extend the Compute team’s charter to own two new critical components: AI Governance, and platform AI products. You will help us shape what these look like at SpotOn.

As a Staff Engineer, you'll operate with broad organizational scope. You'll help drive the technical direction for the Compute team, build alignment across Infrastructure and product engineering, and tackle the highest-complexity problems in our platform.

You're a Great Fit For This Role If:

• You think in systems: You naturally consider the second and third-order effects of infrastructure decisions, and you design for scale, reliability, and operability from the start.

• You lead through technical excellence: Engineers seek out your perspective. You raise the bar in design reviews, shape standards and best practices, and mentor senior engineers to grow into greater impact.

• You own outcomes, not just tasks: You identify high-leverage problems, definite the path forward, and drive them to resolution across team boundaries.

• You balance depth with breadth: You can go deep on Kubernetes internals or cloud compute primitives, and then zoom out to align stakeholders and communicate tradeoffs clearly.

• You want to work with both code and infrastructure: You’re ready to solve the problem at hand, whether it requires writing code on an IDE, running commands on a terminal window, or browsing a cloud dashboard.

• You are energized by the AI moment: You see LLMs and AI agents as valuable tools and you have opinions about how to use them responsibly. You are intelligently utilizing AI capabilities to assist with your daily work and look to make this a platform feature well governed and easy to use for all at the company.

Minimum Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience as a software or platform engineer

• 2+ years as technical leader

• Strong programming skills in an object-oriented or systems language, with experience building infrastructure tooling and automation

• Demonstrated experience operating multi-account multi-cluster Kubernetes-based production environments

• Demonstrated experience leading technical initiatives that span organizational boundaries

• Availability to work during core team hours, 9 am to 12 pm EST

• Ability to participate on-call shifts as required

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience running and scaling Kubernetes in AWS via EKS

• Experience with GitOps deployment technologies like Argo CD

• Experience with Cloud Infrastructure technologies like Terraform

• Experience governing and managing AI infrastructure and tooling

Responsibilities:

• Partner with platform and product teams to understand compute needs and translate them into durable infrastructure

• Own the performance, reliability, and cost efficiency of our compute layer

• Be a thought leader on responsible and effective use of AI tooling

• Mentor and grow engineers on the Compute team through design reviews, pairing, and direct feedback

• Stay current with emerging technologies and practices in developer experience and platform engineering

• Participate in on-call activities to support the stability of our products

What Success Looks Like

In your first 90 days you’ve deeply mapped the current state of our Kubernetes platform, identified the highest-leverage improvements, shipped at least one meaningful change, and worked with other engineering leadership to produce a strawman roadmap for our AI journey.

At 6 months you own the technical direction of the Compute platform roadmap, have worked with engineers across the org to validate that roadmap.

At 1 year the platform is measurably improved and more self-service, AI governance practices are embedded in how we work with or ship AI features company-wide, and AI is beginning to meaningfully help the platform team be a force multiplier for SpotOn

Why Join Us?

At SpotOn, you’ll be part of a team that values diversity, creativity, and a shared mission to help small businesses succeed. Join us to build technology that makes a difference, work with talented peers, and contribute to a culture where your ideas and impact matter.

Compensation:

• Our base pay range is $180,000-$225,000 for this role

• Please note the salary range listed is just one component of a competitive compensation package, which includes a company stock plan

• Offers will be reflective of the candidate’s location and experience.

Benefits:

At SpotOn, we put people above everything else. We’re known for our innovative software and technology solutions, but we stand out because of the hard-working humans behind the tech. We can’t take care of our clients without taking care of our employees first, and that’s why we invest in you with a competitive benefits package which includes:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance

• 401(k) with company match

• RSUs

• Paid vacation, 10 company holidays, sick time, and volunteer time off

• Employee Resource Groups to build community and inclusion at work

• Monthly cell phone and internet stipend

• Tuition reimbursement for up to $2,000 per calendar year to assist with your professional development

We will never ask candidates to pay fees, purchase equipment, or share sensitive personal or financial information during the hiring process. All legitimate communication from our recruiting team will come from an official company email address (@spoton.com). If something seems suspicious, please contact us at [email protected].

SpotOn is an equal employment opportunity employer. Qualified candidates are considered for employment without regard to race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, military or veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

SpotOn is an E-Verify company.