# Toast — Senior Principal Software Engineer - AI Pod

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| **Date found** | 2026-05-21 |
| **Company** | Toast |
| **Role** | Senior Principal Software Engineer - AI Pod |
| **Location** | Dublin, Hybrid |
| **Salary** | Undisclosed |
| **Job URL** | https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4411882496/ |
| **Status** | New |

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## Company Research

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| **Headquarters** | Boston, Massachusetts, USA |
| **Founded** | 2011 |
| **Employees** | 1,000–5,000 (7,726 on LinkedIn) |
| **LinkedIn** | [company/toast-inc](https://www.linkedin.com/company/toast-inc/) — 315K followers |
| **Website** | [pos.toasttab.com](https://pos.toasttab.com) |
| **Blog** | Not found |

- **Product:** All-in-one cloud POS and restaurant management platform — POS, online ordering, payroll, and financial tools (NYSE: TOST)
- **Customers:** Hundreds of thousands of restaurant locations globally
- **Notable:** Dublin team runs a dedicated AI Pod focused on AI-native engineering and agentic development practices

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## Job Summary

**What they do:** Cloud-based restaurant management and POS software (NYSE: TOST) serving hundreds of thousands of restaurant locations globally; the Dublin team runs an AI Pod focused on AI-native engineering.

**The role:** Senior Principal Software Engineer in the AI Pod — sets the technical vision for agentic development and spreads those patterns across the whole organisation.

**Core work:**
- Define and implement agentic development patterns for adoption across Toast engineering
- Build LLM-powered agents using MCP (Model Context Protocol) and A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocols
- Communicate and influence at executive level; optionally manage a small team (2–4 engineers, nice-to-have)

**Stack:** Python · LLM agents · MCP · A2A · AWS · Langfuse · DataDog

**Work style:** Hybrid, Dublin (on-site frequency unspecified; in-person collaboration strongly encouraged)

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## Score: 68%

| Dimension | Score | Justification |
|---|---|---|
| Agentic AI depth (25%) | 85% | LLM-powered agents, MCP integration, A2A protocols, agentic dev practices as organisational standard — strong agentic depth |
| Tech fit (25%) | 70% | LLM agents, AWS-hosted SaaS, MCP, observability tooling (Langfuse/DataDog) — good stack overlap; less LangGraph/CrewAI-specific |
| Remote fit (25%) | 50% | Hybrid Dublin; "fosters in-person collaboration" — frequency not specified, assumed 2 days/week |
| Company culture fit (15%) | 60% | SaaS/restaurant tech, not AI-native but strong AI investment; AI pod is a focused team within a larger org |
| IC/leadership balance (10%) | 80% | Senior Principal IC with optional small team management (2-4 eng, nice-to-have not required) |
| **Final (weighted)** | **68%** | |

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## Strengths

- Explicitly requires MCP experience — exact match to Luca's toolchain
- A2A (Agent-to-Agent) protocols and multi-agent orchestration is core to the role
- Bologna school alumni contact in team (Allyson Bonneau Rivas)
- Only 7 people clicked apply — extremely low competition
- Senior Principal level IC with high architectural ownership

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## Weaknesses & Risks

- Hybrid frequency unknown — must clarify before applying
- Salary undisclosed — must verify against €110k+ floor
- Toast is a restaurant SaaS company, not an AI-first product company — culture fit is mixed
- Role expects "communicate and influence at the executive level" — some sales/org politics implied

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## Suggestions

- Clarify hybrid policy (days/week) before investing time — use Bologna alumni contact
- Emphasise MCP experience and multi-agent orchestration work heavily
- Frame Claude Code / agentic toolchain usage as direct match to their "agentic development practices" mission
- Salary conversation should happen at recruiter screen

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## Interview Tracker

| Stage | Date | Notes |
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| Applied | | |
| Recruiter screen | | |
| Technical interview | | |
| Final round | | |
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