Senior QA Engineer - Enterprise Drive-thru

About this role

Location: Costa Mesa, California, US - Hybrid #LI-HYBRID / #BI-HYBRID

Toast creates technology to help restaurants and local businesses succeed in a digital world, helping business owners operate, increase sales, engage customers, and keep employees happy.

Toast currently serves hundreds of multi-unit brands, including Caribou Coffee, Choice Hotels, Craveworthy Brands, WaBa Grill, Nothing Bundt Cakes, Papa Gino's & D'Angelo, Costa Vida Fresh Mexican Grill, and The Human Bean, among others.

As a member of the Enterprise Drive-Thru team, you'll help ensure the quality and reliability of the next generation of drive-thru technology powering some of the largest restaurant brands in the industry. You can read more on our Toast for Enterprise page and Toast Drive-Thru page.

Drive-thrus are rapidly evolving through advancements in software, hardware, automation, and AI-powered technologies. We're looking for a Senior Quality Engineer who thrives in complex environments and is passionate about delivering high-quality products that combine software, hardware, and real-world operational workflows.

In this role, you'll work closely with Product, Engineering, Hardware Operations, Customer Care, and Go-To-Market teams to validate new products from concept through launch. You'll play a critical role in testing and validating everything from AI-powered solutions and drive-thru software to media players, digital menu boards, kiosks, payment devices, and other restaurant technology.

A day in the life (Responsibilities)

• Own test automation strategy. Design, build, and maintain automated testing frameworks and test suites that improve coverage, reduce manual effort, and increase release confidence across software and hardware products.

• Own quality across software and hardware solutions. Develop and execute testing strategies that ensure reliable performance across drive-thru applications, hardware devices, integrations, and customer environments.

• Support zero-to-one product development. Partner closely with Product and Engineering teams throughout discovery, development, pilots, and commercialization efforts to bring new products from concept to scale.

• Test AI-powered and solutions. Validate voice AI, speech recognition workflows, computer vision systems, camera technologies, and other AI-powered products through structured testing, automation, and real-world validation.

• Lead test planning and execution. Create test plans, test cases, regression suites, and release validation processes to ensure product quality and reliability.

• Validate hardware integrations. Test and troubleshoot cameras, media players, digital menu boards, kiosks, payment devices, networking equipment, and other drive-thru technologies.

• Partner directly with customers and field teams. Support pilots, field testing, customer deployments, and issue investigation in real-world restaurant environments.

• Collaborate across teams. Work closely with Product, Engineering, Hardware Operations, and Customer Care to identify risks, resolve issues, and continuously improve quality.

• Leverage AI tools to improve quality. Utilize AI tools to accelerate test creation, debugging, issue investigation, and overall testing efficiency.

• Embrace and advocate for the use of AI tools to accelerate product discovery, streamline execution, and explore new product experiences - helping shape how we build and what we build.

• Organized & Systems-Minded: Proven ability to bring structure to complex workflows, leveraging spreadsheets to organize personal workload, track team deliverables, and streamline processes.

What you'll need to thrive (Requirements)

• QA and automation experience. 5+ years of experience testing software products, including designing, building, and maintaining automated testing frameworks and test suites across web, mobile, API, hardware-integrated, or distributed systems.

• Programming and scripting experience. Experience developing automated tests and quality tooling using languages such as Java, Kotlin, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, or similar technologies.

• Hardware testing expertise. Strong comfort working with physical devices, hardware integrations, networking, and troubleshooting real-world system issues.

• Test planning and quality ownership. Proven ability to create test plans, regression strategies, release validation processes, and quality standards.

• Technical fluency. Ability to work closely with engineering teams to understand system architecture, APIs, integrations, and technical…