Software Engineer, Technical Lead

Company: Mashgin
Location: Palo Alto
Posted on: February 19, 2026

Job Description:

Job Description Job 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 Are you a former Founder or Engineering Manager looking to return to hands-on technical work? Or a senior engineer passionate about developing hardware and software products that leverage AI to enhance customer experience? We offer an opportunity to step away from leadership or team management and directly contribute to creating new features and managing a core part of Mashgin’s product. We’re looking for people who enjoy building products and tools and are comfortable juggling multiple tasks. You will develop customer-facing products that impact the business and help define our long-term technical goals, all while upholding high-quality standards. This role isn’t highly specialized — it’s about end-to-end ownership of projects, involving you in every stage from idea, design, and prototyping to execution and shipping. You’ll also work across various parts of the codebase in multiple languages. We maintain a flat, high-impact engineering culture where every engineer who joins our team carries the title of Member of Technical Staff. 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. You Will Be Leading and owning major feature development and working directly with the founders on product development from end to end Technical leadership and direct responsibilities of specific products and features. Mentoring other engineers Working with a small interdisciplinary team in hardware, software and design to build new versions of products from scratch Work full stack on building new features and dreaming up new architecture to solve challenging problems Rethinking and recreating existing codebases for scale Continuously improving and maintaining code that’s already in production Minimum Qualifications 8 years relevant coding experience 3 years of technical or people leadership in a fast-paced engineering environment 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, C#, 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 Experience in a fast-paced work environment, shipping quality code quickly and iterating Comfortable with deploying and managing cloud infrastructure Good knowledge of algorithms and data structures Strong proficiency with SQL and other database technologies 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 Catered lunch in office with fully stocked snacks and beverages Pet insurance for your fur babies Voluntary life insurance plan Competitive salary and options in a small, rapidly scaling company For roles based in Palo Alto, CA, the overall market range for Mashgin is typically $185,000 - $300,000 USD annually. Note that total compensation for this position will be determined by candidate’s relevant qualifications, work experience, skills, and other relevant factors. This estimate excludes the value of any benefits offered by Mashgin, and the potential future value of any other long-term incentives. 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. We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

Keywords: Mashgin, Novato , Software Engineer, Technical Lead, Engineering , Palo Alto, California