Director, Digital Core Platforms

Our secret to leading the way in hospitality? We put our people first! At Shake Shack, our mission is to Stand For Something Good in all that we do. From our teams to our neighborhoods, we're committed to always doing the right thing. As one of the fastest-growing hospitality brands, we're all about crafting unforgettable experiences for our guests. We offer endless learning opportunities and the chance to make a lasting impact on our business, restaurants, and communities. As a member of the #ShackFam, you’ll have access to hands-on mentorship, training, and growth potential, all in a fun and inclusive environment. Join us and Be a Part of Something Good. Location: Atlanta, GA (Preferred) or NYC Reporting to: VP, Digital Technology & AI Engineering Hybrid: 3 days in office (Tue/Wed/Thu) Role Overview This is a strategic and highly visible leadership role responsible for defining, operating, and scaling Shake Shack’s core digital platforms — including Shack Stack, Kiosk, and our foundational partner ecosystem. The Director will serve as the technical owner of the digital platforms, ensuring best-in-class reliability, performance, security, and scalability. This role directly influences vendor roadmaps, shapes platform investment strategy, and enables new digital guest experiences through modular, extensible platform capabilities. You will lead, develop, and inspire a team of Platform Managers and partner engineering organizations, driving clarity, accountability, and operational excellence. You will collaborate closely with Digital Engineering, Restaurant Technology, Digital Product, AI Engineering, Operations, and key technology partners. Key Responsibilities • Set and communicate the vision and strategy for Shake Shack’s core digital platforms; align roadmaps to business growth and guest experience goals. • Lead, mentor, and motivate a high-performing team of Technical Platform Managers responsible for Shack Stack, Payments, OMS, Kiosk, Fraud, Identity, and Observability systems. • Serve as the executive owner of foundational platform architecture, ensuring reliability, scalability, and seamless integration across internal APIs and partner systems. • Influence and manage strategic vendor relationships (e.g., Okta, JTech/Sinch, Square, FreedomPay, Kount), ensuring joint accountability, roadmap alignment, and measurable outcomes. • Define and drive reliability and resilience standards — uptime SLAs, MTTR, incident response playbooks, error budgets, observability frameworks. • Partner cross-functionally with Product, Digital Engineering, Restaurant Tech, and AI teams to enable new digital capabilities and eliminate friction across the guest journey. • Communicate platform health, performance insights, risk, and investment decisions with clarity to executive and operational stakeholders. Leadership Expectations • Operate as a strategic leader who can flex between enterprise-wide vision and hands-on decision making. • Communicate with clarity, executive presence, and influence across technical and non-technical groups. • Build a culture of ownership, accountability, continuous improvement, and high performance. • Inspire and empower teams through transparent leadership, development, and coaching. Qualifications • 10+ years in technology leadership roles managing mission-critical platforms in high-scale consumer, digital commerce, or QSR environments. • Strong technical acumen in microservices, APIs, identity, payments, fraud, and cloud (AWS) architectures. • Demonstrated success managing vendor partnerships, negotiations, and influencing product roadmaps. • Proven ability to hire, coach, develop, and grow high-performing teams. • Ability to communicate effectively with executives and lead change at scale. Success Measures • >99.99% uptime across guest-facing platforms • Reduced operational incidents and platform risk • Incremental and value driven feature delivery and faster execution velocity across digital platforms streams • Strong vendor accountability and improved cost-to-value outcomes • A motivated, empowered, high-performing team Benefits at Shake Shack: A work environment where you can come as you are, share your ideas, have fun, and work collaboratively: • Weekly Pay and Performance bonuses • Shake Shack Meal Discounts • Exclusive corporate discounts for travel, electronics, wellness, leisure activities and more • Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance* • Employer Paid Life and Disability Insurance* • 401k Plan with Company Match* • Paid Time Off* • Paid Parental Leave* • Access to Employee Assistance Program on Day 1 • Pre-Tax Commuter and Parking Benefits • Flexible Spending and Dependent Care Accounts* • Development and Growth Opportunities • Eligibility criteria applies Click the "Apply" button above to apply for this opening. About Us Beginning as a hot dog cart in New York City’s Madison Square Park, Shake Shack was created by Danny Meyer, Founder and CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group and best-selling author of Setting the Table. Shack Fans lined up daily, making the cart a resounding success, and donating all proceeds back to the park beautification efforts. A permanent stand was eventually built…and the rest is Shack history! With our roots in fine dining and giving back to the community, we are committed to high quality food served with a high level of hospitality. Our team members enjoy a positive work environment that is deeply committed to the philosophy that we "Stand for Something Good." Shake Shack is an Equal Opportunity Employer All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic, including race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, age, disability (mental and physical), sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, gender expression, medical condition, genetic information, marital, military and veteran status. Apply tot his job