Job Description
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 is launching a new initiative to bring the power of voice AI into the in-store restaurant experience. While voice has transformed drive-thru and phone ordering we believe there’s a large opportunity to make in-store experiences better for guests and more proficient for restaurant teams. This team will explore voice capabilities across front-of-house (guest ordering service interactions POS assistance) and back-of-house (kitchen coordination hands-free workflows inventory signals). As the Principal Product Manager — Voice AI (In-Store) on the Commerce Platform you’ll define strategy evaluate vendors and partners run zero→one discovery and pilots in real restaurants and lead commercialization — creating a reusable voice platform that powers multiple use cases across the restaurant.
A day in the life (Responsibilities)
- Define vision & portfolio strategy. Own the long-term vision and multi-quarter roadmap for in-store voice AI and the platform that enables multiple use cases across FOH/BOH. Balance short-term pilots with long-term platform investments.
- Run vendor & technical evaluation. Lead technical evaluation of voice and AI vendors (ASR NLU TTS edge inference on-device options) and create benchmarking frameworks for accuracy latency privacy and cost.
- Lead commercial conversations. Drive vendor commercial discussions (pricing models licensing SLAs) and surface negotiation points — partnering with Procurement and Legal who finalize contracts and budget approvals.
- Drive zero → one discovery and pilots. Plan and execute discovery rapid prototyping and in-restaurant pilots; iterate based on operational feedback and scale successful experiments.
- Design a reusable voice platform. Define APIs integration patterns data flows and tooling that make voice capabilities reusable across guest experiences staff workflows and integrations with POS kitchen systems and telemetry services.
- Lead GTM & commercialization. Define pricing packaging and go-to-market strategy with Product Marketing Sales and Operations; identify commercial models that fit restaurants of different sizes.
- Coordinate cross-functional delivery. Align Engineering Hardware Ops Reliability Security Data Research Design Care/Onboarding and GTM partners to de-risk delivery and adoption.
- Drive operational readiness & reliability. Define operational playbooks observability edge/online failover modes and post-launch monitoring to ensure reliable in-store behavior and low support cost.
- Champion field research & validation. Spend time in restaurants to learn operational workflows validate prototypes and iterate with real staff and guests.
- Mentor & shape product practice. Coach senior PMs and engineers on voice/AI product development vendor evaluation and responsible AI practices; contribute to the Product Playbook.
- 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.
What you'll need to thrive (Requirements)
- AI product delivery experience. ~8+ years shipping complex software products with demonstrated ownership of multi-team programs or a major product portfolio and experience delivering AI-enabled features or products.
- AI Model Evaluation. Hands-on experience defining and owning AI model evaluation (examples: WER/CER intent accuracy wake-word false accept/reject latency completion/task success) building continuous evaluation and model ops processes (drift detection automated regression tests A/B testing rollback/mitigation playbooks) and partnering with ML teams to run experiments and error analysis.
- Zero → one experience. Proven track record taking a product from discovery through prototype and pilot to scale.
- Vendor evaluation & commercial acumen. Hands-on experience evaluating AI/voice vendors and participating in vendor commercial conversations (note: Procurement/Legal finalize contracts).
- Platform mindset. Ability to design reusable APIs and platform capabilities that enable multiple downstream use cases and teams.
- Customer & ops empathy. Experience conducting on-site discovery and validating prototypes in operational environments (restaurant or other physical venues).
- Cross-team leadership. Exemplary stakeholder management and ability to align senior partners across hardware engineering ops and GTM especially on high-visibility initiatives.
- Communication & influence. Clear persuasive written and verbal communication; able to synthesize technical tradeoffs and business value for executives and partners.
Special Sauce* (Nice to Haves)
- Speech / voice product experience. Prior experience building voice AI products (ASR/NLU/TTS or working directly with speech teams) is helpful but not required.
- Conversational UX & dialog design. Experience designing conversational flows state management turn-taking error recovery and graceful degradation
- Exposure to hardware considerations for voice (far-field audio beamforming noise cancellation embedded audio processing).
- Experience with on-device / edge inference and hybrid cloud/edge voice architectures (model quantization latency/footprint tradeoffs).
- Familiarity with privacy compliance and PII handling for voice data (on-device vs cloud processing country-level regulations).
- Background in restaurant retail or other physical-world operations.
- Experience with ML lifecycle tooling continuous model evaluation and production A/B testing strategies for AI features.
You’ll be measured on (suggested success metrics)
- Launch and adoption of successful in-store voice pilots (pilot → scale conversion).
- Measurable operational impact (e.g. staff time saved reduction in order errors throughput gains).
- Guest experience improvements (NPS/CSAT lift for voice flows voice take rate).
- Platform reuse (number of distinct use cases / teams reusing core voice APIs).
- Reliability & support outcomes (uptime targets reduction in Care tickets related to voice).
- AI health & model performance: model accuracy (WER/intent accuracy) latency drift rate and rate of regressions caught by CI/monitoring systems.
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.
#LI-REMOTEThe 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.
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. To learn more: https://careers.toasttab.com/ai-in-hiring
Diversity Equity and Inclusion is Baked into our Recipe for Success
At Toast our employees are our secret ingredient—when they thrive we thrive. The restaurant industry is one of the most diverse and we embrace that diversity with authenticity inclusivity respect and humility. By embedding these principles into our culture and design we create equitable opportunities for all and raise the bar in delivering exceptional experiences.
We Thrive Together
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 restaurant community. To learn more about how we work globally and regionally check out: https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast.
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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For roles in the United States it is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.
Skills Required
- 8+ years shipping complex software products
- Experience delivering AI-enabled features or products
- Hands-on experience defining and owning AI model evaluation
- Proven track record taking a product from discovery to scale
- Experience evaluating AI/voice vendors
- Ability to design reusable APIs and platform capabilities
- Experience conducting on-site discovery and validating prototypes
- Strong stakeholder management skills
- Clear written and verbal communication skills
What the Team is Saying
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Toast Compensation & Benefits Highlights
- Parental & Family Support—Paid parental/family/medical leave is extensive featuring 16 weeks for all parents with additional time for birthing parents alongside fertility guidance/stipends and subsidized backup child/adult care.
- Leave & Time Off Breadth—Flexible PTO paid company holidays and a paid sabbatical available after five years expand rest options and long‑term renewal.
- Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits—No‑cost therapy and coaching a wellness stipend financial education work‑enablement and professional development stipends donation matching and preferred pet‑insurance pricing support holistic wellbeing.
Toast Insights
What We Do
Toast is the all-in-one platform built for restaurants of all sizes. Toast provides a single platform of software as a service (SaaS) products and financial technology solutions that give restaurants everything they need to run their business including point of sale payments supplier management digital ordering and delivery marketing and loyalty and team management. By serving as the restaurant operating system across dine-in takeout and delivery channels Toast helps restaurants increase revenue streamline operations and deliver amazing guest experiences.
Why Work With Us
Our recipe for an awesome workplace: One splash of friendship A dollop of impact A sprinkle of no hierarchy & A heavy spoonful of individuality Mix these ingredients in a fast-paced and hardworking environment. Best paired with a side of interesting people who always bring their whole selves to work. *100% Sunday scary free
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