POS Engineer

We are looking senior individual contributor with deep POS and QSR experience who can combine edge computing, OS strategy, and capacity planning to deliver practical, future‑ready POS architecture recommendations—without forcing unnecessary hardware refreshes. Please note: This is hybrid role (4 days onsite per week). Key Job Notes for this Role: Hiring a hands‑on senior consultant to help design and evaluate next‑generation POS hardware and edge computing architecture for a large Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) environment as part of a team. This is not a people‑manager role and not day‑to‑day POS support. The focus is architecture, tradeoffs, and future‑proofing—especially extending hardware life, reducing OS risk, and ensuring systems can grow with software (including AI use cases) over the next 5–10 years. What You’ll Do · Evaluate current POS hardware and deployment models Evaluate edge‑based architectures that: · Reduce dependency on POS terminal OS EOS. · Allow POS logic to move off the register where appropriate. · Support 100% seamless offline operation and high‑volume store environments. Help define where workloads should run: · POS endpoint vs store edge vs cloud. · Assess hardware and OS choices against future growth, including AI‑driven workloads. · Deliver clear architecture recommendations, diagrams, and tradeoff analysis with the team. Required Experience (Must Have): POS & QSR Experience: Hands‑on experience with large enterprise POS systems in QSR or high‑volume retail. · Experience designing around existing POS platforms, not replacing them Strong understanding of: · Transactions · Payments · Peripherals · Offline / degraded network behaviour Edge Computing & Architecture · Real experience designing or operating edge computing in distributed environments. · Comfortable with store‑level compute models that work even when the network is down. · Experience supporting mixed fleets (legacy hardware + new stores). POS Hardware: Experience with enterprise POS hardware such as: · NCR · Oracle MICROS · HP (or similar vendors) · Understands hardware lifecycle realities (long refresh cycles, mixed environments). OS & Imaging (Hands‑On): · OS imaging and lifecycle management experience. · Windows LTSC in POS environments (including tradeoffs). · Linux for edge or backend workloads (practical use, not ideological). Future‑Ready & Capacity Planning (Critical) · Understands how emerging technologies (e.g., AI, real‑time analytics, automation) impact store compute needs. · Experience with capacity planning and technology decisions looking 3–5 years out. · Able to design architectures where software growth does not immediately force hardware upgrades. Please Note: We are not looking for someone to build AI models. We are looking for someone who understands what AI and future software demand from infrastructure. Nice to Have: · Headless or API‑first POS / commerce architectures. · Containerized workloads at the edge. · PCI boundary and payment isolation experience. · Experience producing architecture documents for both technical teams and executives. What This Role Is NOT: · Not people management. · Not vendor ownership or procurement negotiation. · Not day‑to‑day POS support or store operations. · Not an AI engineering role.