Principal Product Manager, Kitchen Commercial Lead

*EST OR CST preferred

• 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.
• The Kitchen Operations team owns one of Toast's most operationally critical and strategically exciting products: the Kitchen Display System (KDS).
• Deployed across tens of thousands of restaurants, Toast KDS is the connective tissue between front-of-house and back-of-house, routing tickets to the right prep stations, managing order sequencing, and helping kitchens run fast and accurately under pressure.
• KDS has strong growth across SMB, enterprise, and international segments.
• Our vision is KDS in the vast majority of Toast kitchens within the next few years.
• Getting there means three things: supporting the most sophisticated enterprise kitchen workflows in the market, differentiating through kitchen data and AI-powered operational insights, and growing adoption among the restaurants that still run on paper tickets.
• This is a high-ownership, high-visibility role at the intersection of restaurant operations, hardware-software product, and applied AI.
• You'll shape how hundreds of thousands of kitchen workers run their stations every day — and you'll be the one building the data and agent layer that lets kitchens run smarter, not just faster.

About this roll* (Responsibilities)

• Own and drive the KDS product strategy — enterprise workflow depth, data differentiation, SMB attach growth, and the agentic AI roadmap — connecting investments to Toast's kitchen adoption vision and near-term business outcomes including ARR growth, support ticket reduction, and enterprise retention.
• Define where agentic AI creates real value in the kitchen: proactive prep time adjustments based on real-time order load, automatic kitchen configuration changes tied to labor schedules or ordering channel mix, intelligent ticket routing and load balancing — and build the investment case to pursue the highest-leverage bets.
• Own KDS delivery end-to-end, working directly with large restaurant groups to translate complex, high-stakes workflow

requirements

into scalable product decisions that serve the whole market.

• Lead the KDS kitchen data strategy: define what kitchen efficiency insights should look like for operators at every scale, from API-first analytics for enterprise operators to actionable reporting for SMBs, and sequence the investments to unlock it.
• Shape and validate the business case for the next-generation KDS strategy — the long-horizon bets that drive future growth.

Do you have the right ingredients*? (Qualifications)

• Proven experience defining and owning product strategy for a complex, operationally critical product — bonus points if it spans hardware and software and/or have experience in food & beverage.
• Creative and strategic: you don't just optimize existing products — you identify the next meaningful bet, make the case for it, and drive it from zero to conviction.
• Curiosity and a point of view on AI and agentic product opportunities in operational environments — you don't need to have shipped an agent, but you should have a clear perspective on where autonomous action creates real value vs. real risk.
• Track record of working directly with enterprise customers, translating nuanced, high-stakes workflow

requirements

into product decisions that scale well beyond a single logo.

• Strong instincts for the SMB operator: you understand what it means to run a restaurant kitchen without a data analyst, an IT team, or a change management budget — and you can build for that reality.
• Executive presence to drive alignment without authority across engineering, design, enterprise customer success, sales, and product leadership in a high-stakes, cross-functional environment.

AI at Toast

• At Toast, one of our company values is that we're hungry to build and learn.
• We believe learning new AI tools empowers us to build for our customers faster, more independently, and with higher quality.
• We provide these tools across all disciplines, from Engineering and Product to Sales and Support, and are inspired by how our Toasters are already driving real value with them.
• The people who thrive here are those who embrace changes that let us build more for our customers; it's a core part of our culture.

Our Total Rewards Philosophy

• We strive to provide competitive compensation and benefits programs that help to attract, retain, and motivate the best and brightest people in our industry.
• Our total rewards package goes beyond great earnings potential and provides the means to a healthy lifestyle with the flexibility to meet Toasters' changing needs.
• Learn more about our benefits at https://careers.toasttab.com/toast-benefits .
• The base salary range for this role is listed below.
• The starting salary will be determined based on skills, experience, and geographic location.
• In addition to base salary, our total rewards components include cash compensation (overtime, bonus/commissions if eligible), equity, and benefits.
• You can learn more about how we align pay with local labor markets in our Geographic Pay Zone Philosophy .

Zone A

$105,000 — $168,000 USD

Zone B

$91,000 — $146,000 USD

Zone C

$82,000 — $131,000 USD

• How Toast Uses AI in its Hiring Process
• Throughout the hiring process, our goal is to get to know you.
• We use AI tools to support our recruiters and interviewers with tasks like note-taking, summarization, and documentation of interviews to ensure they can be fully focused on your conversation.
• All hiring decisions are made by people.
• We ask that you complete interviews and assessments on your own, without real-time AI tools, recording, or transcription bots, unless we tell you otherwise in advance.

Our Approach to Hybrid Working

• We embrace a hybrid work model that fosters in-person collaboration while valuing individual needs.
• Our goal is to build a strong culture of connection as we work together to empower the hospitality community, regardless of location.
• Please visit the Locations page on our career site to learn more about our in-office expectations by region: https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast
• People Are the Secret Ingredient in Our Recipe for Success
• At Toast, our employees are our secret ingredient—when they thrive, we thrive.
• The restaurant industry brings together people with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, and we value that same breadth at Toast.
• We strive to build a culture grounded in authenticity, respect, and humility, where every Toaster has a real opportunity to grow, contribute, and do their best work—raising the bar in delivering exceptional experiences for our customers and each other.

Apply today!

• Toast is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive hiring process.
• As part of this commitment, we strive to provide reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities to enable them to access the hiring process.
• If you need an accommodation to access the job application or interview process, please contact [email protected] .

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