The Role
Lead end-to-end design and implementation of consumer and chef-facing product features. Partner with Product, Design, Data, and Ops to define requirements, ship improvements, and iterate using analytics. Improve code quality, testing, observability, performance, and reliability. Mentor engineers and contribute to architecture and technical strategy in a high-growth startup environment.
Summary Generated by Built In
WHAT WE DO
THE ROLE
RESPONSIBILITIES
NOTE: PROTECT YOURSELF FROM JOB SCAMS
Compensation
At Shef, we’re building a homemade food marketplace. We believe in providing the shefs in our community (refugees, immigrants, stay-at-home parents, retirees, and out-of-work restaurant chefs) the opportunity to make a meaningful income by doing what they love. We also believe that everyone should have access to a wholesome, home-cooked meal at an affordable price.
We’re building a community devoted to economic empowerment and cultural inclusivity — that’s why we started Shef. We have raised over $100m from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, Craft Ventures, and M13, as well as founders and executives from Instacart, TaskRabbit, StubHub, AngelList, Lyft, Airbnb, and Yelp.
As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll lead the development of delightful, high-impact experiences for both consumers and Shefs across the country. You’ll help optimize the shopping experience for customers, and you’ll build micro-entrepreneurship tools that enable Shefs to run and grow their own businesses.
If we succeed, we’ll fundamentally change how people purchase food — expanding access to healthy, affordable, authentic meals while empowering thousands of entrepreneurs.
This role reports directly to the company’s engineering leader. This is a hybrid position located in the San Francisco Bay Area or New York (local candidates only).
- Own the design, implementation, and rollout of key product features end-to-end — from discovery through launch and iteration
- Build new experiences that delight consumers and help Shefs grow their businesses
- Partner closely with Product, Design, Data, and Ops to define requirements, validate assumptions, and ship measurable improvements
- Bring a strong bias for execution while making good technical tradeoffs between time, quality, and long-term maintainability
- Use analytics and customer insights to identify opportunities, measure outcomes, and iterate quickly
- Raise the bar on engineering excellence: code quality, testing, observability, performance, and reliability
- Mentor other engineers through thoughtful code reviews, pairing, and sharing best practices; help improve team processes and technical decision-making
- Contribute to architecture and technical strategy in a pragmatic, startup-appropriate way
Significant professional software engineering experience building and shipping production web applications (typically 5+ years, but we care most about scope and impact)
- Strong experience with modern web development — React, TypeScript, and Node (or equivalent expertise with the ability to ramp quickly)
- Proven ability to lead projects with ambiguous requirements and drive them to a high-quality outcome
- Product-minded: you think in terms of customer needs, business outcomes, and measurable impact — not just tickets
- Comfortable operating in a high-growth environment where priorities evolve; you make smart tradeoffs and keep momentum
- High ownership and accountability: you proactively find problems, propose solutions, and follow through
- Experience at high-growth startups (pre-seed through Series C)
- Experience with experimentation, analytics, or growth/product iteration loops
- Experience building tools for entrepreneurs, marketplaces, logistics, or consumer checkout/search experiences
- Familiarity with scaling systems, performance tuning, or improving reliability/observability
At Shef, we are building a platform that celebrates difference and cultural inclusivity by providing equitable opportunities for economic empowerment and by reimagining food making and sharing in our 21st century world. Our employee, shef, and customer communities represent a wide, beautiful cross-section of individuals from diverse cultures, ethnicities, races, and walks of life.
Shef is an equal opportunity employer. We strive to build a team that reflects the communities we serve, and a workplace that nurtures and empowers unique identities and experiences. We strongly encourage applications from BIPOC (Black; Indigenous; People of Color), women, LGBTQ+, and other individuals who are underrepresented in the industry, across color, religion, race, ethnic and national origin, physical ability, gender and sexual identity. For individuals who require an accommodation during the interview process, please advise your company contact.
Please protect yourself from job scams. Shef will never ask for money or fees at any point during the interview process. Shef does not ask applicants to communicate through Telegram, Skype, or WhatsApp. If you are being asked to download a third-party app to communicate for a job interview, do not download. Shef posts all legitimate job openings on our jobs page. Any legitimate role on a third-party site will also be posted on our careers page.
The base pay range for this role is $150,000 – $170,000 per year.
Skills Required
- 5+ years professional software engineering experience building and shipping production web applications
- Strong experience with React
- Strong experience with TypeScript
- Strong experience with Node
- Proven ability to lead projects with ambiguous requirements and drive to high-quality outcomes
- Product-minded: focus on customer needs, business outcomes, and measurable impact
- Comfortable operating in a high-growth environment and making smart tradeoffs
- High ownership and accountability; proactive problem identification and follow-through
- Experience at high-growth startups (pre-seed through Series C)
- Experience with experimentation, analytics, or growth/product iteration loops
- Experience building tools for entrepreneurs, marketplaces, logistics, or consumer checkout/search experiences
- Familiarity with scaling systems, performance tuning, reliability, and observability
Shef Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Shef and has not been reviewed or approved by Shef.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Help center materials outline a clear payout model for cooks, with fixed per‑item payouts in one program and a defined share of item price in another, plus tips retained. This clarity helps set expectations on how earnings are calculated across offering types.
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Healthcare Strength — A corporate job post describes health and wellness benefits administered via Sequoia One. This indicates structured healthcare support exists for W‑2 employees.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — The same posting highlights work‑from‑home stipends, in‑office perks, Shef product credit, and learning and development stipends. These perks suggest lifestyle and growth‑oriented support beyond base pay.
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The Company
What We Do
At Shef, we're bringing the sharing economy to the table. We believe in providing our Shefs (refugees, immigrants, stay-at-home parents) the opportunity to make a meaningful income from their very own kitchens. We also believe that every person should have access to a healthy, homemade meal at an affordable price. Building a safe and happy community devoted to economic empowerment and cultural inclusivity -- that's why we started Shef.
