Mashgin is hiring a hands-on Engineering Manager in Palo Alto to own the software behind its AI-powered self-checkout kiosks—kiosk software, backend services, and POS integrations—while hiring and growing a small team. The role is roughly a third to half hands-on coding, working directly with the founders.
Compensation
$200K–$280K / yr
Location
Palo Alto, CA
Work setup
Hybrid
Seniority
Not specified
Employment
Not specified
Experience
3+ years
Category
Software engineering
Posted
Skills
ai
automation
cloud
cpp
iot
java
nodejs
python
Must have
8+ years building production software
3+ years managing engineers directly, including hiring, performance, and career growth
A track record of staying technical while managing: recent code, design reviews, or architecture you personally owned
B.S. or higher in Computer Science (or equivalent work experience)
Excellent knowledge of one or more of these languages: Python, Node.js, C++, Go, Java
Comfortable learning new languages, libraries, and frameworks when the solution calls for it
Experience building production-ready code that's used regularly by lots of people
Nice to have
Built a team from a few engineers into a functioning group
Experience in a fast-paced work environment, shipping quality code quickly and iterating
Comfortable with deploying and managing cloud infrastructure
Worked on products with a hardware or edge-deployed component
Experience working with memory-constrained and performant systems
Good knowledge of algorithms and data structures
Full description
About Mashgin
Mashgin powers the world's best checkout experience for over 40 million users. Customers just place their items on our kiosks and our AI rings up their entire order in less than a second. With Mashgin, lines are now optional.
Mashgin's technology powers over 1 billion transactions at your favorite locations, including over half of all US professional sports teams, 4,000 convenience stores, major airports, universities, and more.
We’re not just building cutting-edge AI—we’re creating real-world impact and unforgettable experiences. Backed by a well-funded Series B, we’re also one of the rare AI startups that’s already profitable.
Our secret? A culture of extreme ownership, autonomy, and customer obsession. At Mashgin, we are building something extraordinary by challenging conventional wisdom. We’ve thrown out the old rules to focus on what truly matters: creating a kickass product that makes people say, 'Wow'. We don’t care about short-term wins; we build systems that stand the test of time. If you thrive in a culture of excellence without compromise and want to see your work have an immediate, remarkable impact, you’re in the right place.
Position Summary
Have you led a team without giving up the parts of engineering you like most? We're looking for an Engineering Manager who also excels as a builder: someone who notices patterns that lead to better design, abstractions, and technical direction to elevate the entire team, while sitting down to ship a feature when needed.
This role owns integrations that enable Mashgin's kiosks to operate as point-of-sale devices. That means the software running on our kiosks, the services behind them, and the customer-facing features that 40 million people touch. You'll work directly with the founders on what gets built, set technical direction for your area, and be accountable for both the quality of the work and the growth of the people doing it. We expect you to spend roughly a third to half your time hands-on.
A note on titles, since it looks unusual from the outside. Every engineer at Mashgin carries the title Member of Technical Staff. We keep the org flat on purpose, and we don't use levels to decide whose ideas carry weight. Managing here doesn't mean sitting above that structure; it means holding a team's direction, hiring, and growth while remaining one of the engineers building the product. If you're looking for a role where management is the reward for no longer coding, this isn't it.
What We Value:
Impact: You will own significant responsibility and have total ownership over your work. We stay lean and efficient, so your work directly impacts the product we ship every day.
Simplicity: Complexity is a waste of time here—we take pride in building things that just work.
Hard Work: Forget the glamorous research papers. We prioritize the hard work it takes to achieve real-world clarity and accuracy. You will innovate relentlessly to push the boundaries of what’s possible in visual automation.
Humility: No task is beneath you. Whether it's high-level architecture or grunt work to fix a bug, we check our egos at the door and get real work done.
Ruthless Prioritization: If everything is on fire, nothing is. You will be expected to prioritize ruthlessly, cutting through distractions to focus on the most impactful product improvements.
Customer Innovation: We are customer-centric, not customer-pleasing. You won’t bend to every client demand; you will let innovation drive the product forward to solve the real problems our users face.
Efficiency: Meetings suck. We keep them short and only use them for alignment, giving you your time back to focus on real work.
What You'll Do
- Own the direction, delivery, and quality of a core area of the product, working directly with the founders from idea through ship
- Hire and grow a small team of strong engineers, creating space for uncertainty, making context switches cheap, and setting the bar for what gets through review
- Stay hands-on: design, write, and review code across the stack, with an emphasis on reading and reviewing code across the full stack
- Turn ambiguous product goals into technical plans your team can execute without close supervision
- Work with a small interdisciplinary team across hardware, software, and design on products that ship to an IoT fleet of physical kiosks actively operating in the field
- Decide what to rebuild for scale and what to leave alone, and make the case for either
- Carry production ownership and on-call alongside your team
- Mentor engineers on the team and across the wider engineering group
Minimum Qualifications
- 8+ years building production software
- 3+ years managing engineers directly, including hiring, performance, and career growth
- A track record of staying technical while managing: recent code, design reviews, or architecture you personally owned
- B.S. or higher in Computer Science (or equivalent work experience)
- Excellent knowledge of one or more of these languages: Python, Node.js, C++, Go, Java
- Comfortable learning new languages, libraries, and frameworks when the solution calls for it
- Experience building production-ready code that's used regularly by lots of people
Preferred Qualifications
- Built a team from a few engineers into a functioning group
- Experience in a fast-paced work environment, shipping quality code quickly and iterating
- Comfortable with deploying and managing cloud infrastructure
- Worked on products with a hardware or edge-deployed component
- Experience working with memory-constrained and performant systems
- Good knowledge of algorithms and data structures
What We Offer
An opportunity to work on a small, multidisciplinary team with the potential to break new ground in many different industries
Excellent health, dental and vision insurance for you and your dependents
401k plan
Flexible PTO policy
Competitive salary and options in a small, rapidly scaling company
Mashgin is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. Individuals seeking employment at Mashgin are considered without regards to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
Notice on fraudulent jobs
We have been made aware of instances of fraudulent job postings and/or fraudulent recruiting activity by bad actors, claiming to represent Mashgin. These fraudulent schemes often seek monetary contributions or payments from job seekers (such as for "start up costs" or "equipment"), or seek to collect sensitive personal or banking information from job seekers. These job postings and offers are not authorized by Mashgin, and Mashgin is not responsible for fraudulent offers or requests for personal information or payments. Mashgin will never ask for any financial commitment or contribution from a candidate at any stage of the recruitment process. Candidates who have questions about the validity of Mashgin job postings or offers should consult the job postings on our mashgin.com career site. If you think you've been scammed, please reference this site for more information.