Principal Software Engineer - Payments, Fraud & Risk

About Toast

Toast is the leading restaurant platform, powering payments, financial services, and operational tools for restaurants globally. Our systems process billions of dollars annually, and our Fraud & Risk platforms are critical to protecting merchants, guests, and Toast itself.

At Toast, Principal Engineers (P5) are senior technical leaders who define direction, unblock teams, and deliver scalable outcomes across the organization.

Are you bready to design systems that protect revenue, stop fraud in real time, and scale globally?

Role

As a Principal Software Engineer (P5) on the Fraud & Risk platform, you will be responsible for end-to-end technical ownership of highly complex, business-critical systems.

You Will:

• Define architecture and long-term technical strategy

• Drive execution across multiple teams

• Make high-stakes technical decisions with broad business impact

• Act as a multiplier for engineering quality and velocity

You will operate comfortably in ambiguity and help Toast scale safely as transaction volumes, fraud sophistication, and regulatory complexity grow.

What You’ll Do

1. Technical Direction & Architecture (Primary Accountability)

• Own and evolve the architecture for Fraud and Risk systems spanning multiple teams

• Define long-term technical vision and roadmaps aligned with Toast’s business goals

• Lead and approve architecture and design reviews for high-impact initiatives

• Make trade-off decisions across latency, accuracy, cost, scalability, and reliability

2. Fraud & Risk Systems at Scale

Design and operate systems for:

• Real-time fraud detection and prevention

• Risk scoring and decisioning engines

• Chargeback prevention and dispute workflows

• Build low-latency, high-throughput distributed systems processing millions of transactions per day

• Partner with the D