Director of Engineering, Computer Vision/AI

We're transforming the grocery industry

At Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers.

Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table.

Instacart is a Flex First team

There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.

Overview

You will lead the development of advanced AI systems that power Instacart’s Caper smart carts, transforming the brick‑and‑mortar retail experience. This role focuses on creating innovative, production‑ready solutions in machine learning, deep learning, and computer vision to seamlessly blend online and in‑store shopping.

Caper builds AI‑powered smart carts equipped with sensors, scales, touchscreens, and computer vision technology. These carts provide a grab‑and‑go, cashier‑less checkout experience without requiring store renovations or complex infrastructure. As part of a fast‑growing, cross‑functional product team, you will help develop scalable, plug‑and‑play retail automation technology that is widely adopted and central to Instacart’s Connected Stores initiative.

About the Job

• Recruit and grow a world-class CV and localization engineering team
• Oversee design and implementation of CV and localization solutions and architectures
• Set technical vision and strategy for CV and ML innovation
• Keep up with trending CV and localization research and bring the latest innovations to the product
• Connect model performance to business metrics and drive business outcome
• Build fast and solid ML infrastructure to enable data collection, fast iterations, experimentation
• Work with cross-functional teams to bring the best AI-powered experience to the product.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in the Computer Vision industry
• Have exposure to indoor location technologies, personalization, or ranking
• 5+ years of management experience and had managed manager of manager experience, with overall team size at least 20+
• Led the R&D of robust and large-scale computer vision applications before
• Familiarity with embedded Computer Vision applications.
• In-depth understanding of general Machine Learning and Deep Learning, including machine learning infrastructure, model optimization, model deployment, serving, data pipelines, workflows, etc.
• Able to track cutting-edge academic work and pick proper ones for implementation
• Familiarity with the Nvidia ecosystem
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiar with Nvidia CUDA tech stack and familiar with C++
• Masters+ degree in Computer Science or other related subjects