Toast Innovation & Technology Culture

Describe the product or feature you worked on. 

I was the second engineer on the team that created Toast’s integrated waitlist and reservations solution called Toast Tables.

As one of the first members of the team, I contributed to building the initial prototype. While building, we focused on iterating and deploying quickly. I then led the effort and wrote a large amount of the code to mitigate the prototype into Toast’s traditional tech stack.  

I also had the opportunity to expand Toast Tables' integrations, which helps to streamline the reservation creation process for guests. Lately, I’ve partnered with other engineers to work on additional features and scaling initiatives as our product usage has grown. 

As the engineering manager, I work with our product manager on roadmap planning and prioritization of features, as well as keeping up to date with all the projects currently in progress.

What was the most exciting or interesting aspect of working on this product? 

I enjoyed being able to work closely with our customers. 

For example, a customer emailed us saying that they urgently needed help as they were launching the next day. I realized there was a bug, was able to fix the bug in real-time, and enabled that restaurant to launch Toast Tables in time for their grand opening. 

How did your engineering team culture support the successful creation of this new product or feature? 

Everyone on the team is aligned on delivering the best value to the customer. We all will do what needs to be done, even if it falls outside the typical scope of our roles. Every engineer is able to approach challenges through different lenses, which allows us to figure out the best solution possible for the Toast community. 

When we think about the products we’re building, we not only look at them from an engineering standpoint, but we also put ourselves in the shoes of restaurant owners and restaurant patrons to ensure their needs are our focus. 

Keeping these perspectives top of mind has been immensely helpful in building the best products possible. While working on this product, we often go through the same motions that a restaurant owner would during implementation. Although this takes a bit more time, the process helps us better understand what may be confusing or tedious for customers. 

Looking at our products from all angles allows us to continue to create a better customer experience.

As a product manager, what are the key ingredients for a successful relationship with your engineering team?

The most important key ingredient is trust. Trust allows for strong collaboration, as we appreciate each other’s expertise and perspective. It’s much easier to find resolution and compromises when you trust that the other person has the same goals in mind — even if the approach is different. Trust enables a level of independence from each other, too, because we can assume the other person will complete their responsibilities competently.

Curiosity is also important. The engineers at Toast all exhibit a product mindset and constructively engage with my team’s strategy and roadmap. They aren’t afraid to ask the whys and the whats. Through this questioning, the roadmap gets refined into something that is superior to what we could come up with alone. Similarly, as a non-technical product manager, I always ask our engineers for an “ELI5” — or “explain like I’m five” — if there’s something I don’t understand. I don’t need to learn every technical nuance. But an elementary comprehension of what they’re proposing pays dividends when it comes to prioritizing a roadmap between feature work and technical debt — and gaining empathy if things don’t go exactly as planned.

Describe how your product and engineering teams intersect.

At Toast, the product manager, engineering team lead and product designer form a three-legged stool. One leg can’t make a decision without affecting the other two. The three of us have weekly syncs to talk through progress updates, dependencies and challenges. Additionally, I have weekly one-on-one meetings with my engineering lead to have more focused conversations. I particularly enjoy more candid unplanned conversations where it’s a free-flow of thoughts and ideas. Not every meeting has to be execution-oriented.

Team processes are co-owned by all members of the team. We have a meeting during every sprint to talk through an existing process that can be improved or a new process that we want to adopt. Anyone can raise a particular topic to discuss, and we’ll have an open period for people to raise questions or considerations related to the proposed process ahead of the meeting. During the meeting, we answer each question and then talk through how we can implement process improvements or new processes. No one wants to simply be told how to do their job. A well-functioning team should be able to decide how to move forward together and constantly refine it in the midst of new challenges.

What communication strategies do you use to ensure engineers share your product vision?

As a product manager, I think it’s really easy to get caught up in meetings with external stakeholders and endless documentation to a point where you get isolated from the rest of the team. There’s a real fear in sharing unpolished ideas and documents with engineering. However, if we wait until everything is “complete” prior to sharing with engineering, then to me that’s not collaboration; it’s more similar to throwing requirements over the wall.

I like to communicate things as early as possible, and bring the team along for each iteration of product strategy and vision, inviting them to bring their own perspectives as inputs. I share insights from customer calls in relation to both the pain points they shared and how our work has positively impacted their lives. The pain points help to inspire confidence in the product vision, while the wins help to confirm the product vision and prove that we’re on the right path.

What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on recently? 

Toast Go 2 is a handheld product we launched last year. I have heard again and again from our customers how much they love this device and how it has helped them through the Covid-19 pandemic with curbside pickup or outdoor dining. From a design perspective, we strive for a perfect blend of form and function, elegance and durability. We know how hard our customers have to work to serve their guests and we strive to make hardware that’s their reliable best friend and hope to put a smile on their face when they are using it.

When you are designing a product like this, there are many ways you can go. One of the secrets that makes this product so successful is being deeply rooted in understanding our customers’ needs and what’s important for them. We also stretched ourselves in pushing the boundaries of engineering and technology innovation. Knowing how crazy restaurants can get with soda, beer and soy sauce flying around, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to waterproof the readers. This just speaks to how we want the device to be there to boost the confidence of the server and support our customer’s hospitality dream.

What do you envision for the future of your industry and how is your work helping to shape that future and bring it to life?

This is my sixth year at Toast and we have come a long way on our hardware design. We went from buying five to 10 devices from Amazon at a time to commercial-grade devices from Elo, then stepping into the territory of building our own devices so we could have more control over the price, go-to-market and final customer experience. 

One area where I think we have a perfect opportunity to lead the industry forward is how to provide the most delightful post-live experience for our customers. Right now, we have beautiful, durable, reliable, easy-to-install hardware that our customers love, and I see the light in their eyes when they open the box. While we are celebrating our scale and maturity, we are also thinking, “So, what’s next?”