Presto is the leading Voice AI company for restaurant drive-thrus, operating at scale in complex, noisy, customer-facing environments. As the AI partner to some of the most iconic restaurant brands in the U.S., Presto is transforming the drive-thru into a revenue engine through AI-driven ordering, personalization, and operational efficiency.
AI is not a feature at Presto, it is the foundation of how we build, evaluate, and evolve our products. We operate with rapid iteration cycles and solve real-world problems where latency, reliability, and accuracy directly impact millions of customer interactions.
This may not be the right fit if you're looking for a traditional 9-to-5 environment. We move at the pace of AI. Roadmaps evolve quickly, and we value builders who thrive in ambiguity, take ownership, and are excited to shape the future of real-world AI systems.
We are looking for a Backend Engineer to help build and scale the core systems that power Presto's Voice AI platform.
This role sits at the heart of our POS & Menu Integration team, where you will design and maintain the backend infrastructure that enables real-time voice ordering. You'll work on ingesting, normalizing, and synchronizing data across a wide range of Point of Sale (POS) systems, ensuring our platform understands menus, availability, pricing, and ordering logic in real time.
Success in this role requires strong backend engineering fundamentals, a systems-thinking mindset, and the ability to build highly reliable, scalable services in a fast-paced environment.
Build and scale backend systems
- Design and develop scalable APIs, services, and data pipelines.
- Build systems that ingest, normalize, and sync POS and menu data across multiple integrations.
- Ensure high availability, reliability, and performance of production systems.
Own system performance and reliability
- Optimize systems for latency, scalability, and uptime.
- Monitor, troubleshoot, and resolve production issues.
- Implement best practices for security and data protection.
Write high-quality, maintainable code
- Write clean, efficient, and well-documented code.
- Develop reusable and testable components with strong emphasis on test coverage.
- Participate in code reviews and contribute to engineering best practices.
Contribute to architecture and infrastructure
- Design backend architectures and make key technical decisions.
- Set up and manage infrastructure for owned services.
- Work with event-driven systems and data synchronization patterns.
Collaborate across teams
- Partner with product, AI, and integration teams to deliver new features.
- Translate real-world restaurant workflows into scalable technical solutions.
- Contribute to technical documentation and system design discussions.
- 4+ years of experience in backend or distributed systems engineering.
- Proficiency in one or more backend languages (Node.js, Python, Java, Go, Ruby).
- Strong experience designing and building RESTful and/or GraphQL APIs.
- Deep understanding of APIs, webhooks, and data synchronization patterns.
- Experience with relational and/or NoSQL databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB) and caching systems (Redis).
- Familiarity with event-driven architectures and message queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ, etc.).
- Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) and CI/CD pipelines.
- Strong understanding of system performance, scalability, and reliability.
- Experience with Git and modern development workflows.
Nice to Have
- Experience working with restaurant technology, retail systems, or delivery platforms.
- Familiarity with POS systems and menu structures (modifiers, pricing rules, ordering logic).
- Experience contributing to POS integration libraries or SDKs.
- Exposure to voice AI or conversational ordering systems.
Why Presto
We move at the speed of AI. This is a high-ownership environment where engineers have direct impact on real-world systems operating at scale. You'll work on technology that is deployed in live customer environments and directly drives business outcomes.
This role offers the opportunity to solve complex integration challenges, build highly reliable systems, and shape how voice AI interacts with the physical world.
Compensation & Benefits
The U.S. base salary range for this position is approximately $110K-$150K annually, plus equity and benefits. Compensation is determined by role, level, location, and individual experience. Presto's compensation philosophy rewards high performers and aligns incentives with long-term value creation.
Benefits for U.S.-based employees include medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) program, and paid time off (PTO). Learn more at.