Senior Director of SOX

We're transforming the grocery industryAt Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers.Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table.Instacart is a Flex First team There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.OverviewWe are seeking an exceptional Senior Director, Head of SOX to lead and elevate our Sarbanes-Oxley compliance program as we continue maturing as a public company. We need a proven SOX expert with deep technical expertise—not a generalist internal audit background—to strengthen our internal controls over financial reporting (ICFR) in a highly complex technology infrastructure and business environment.This is a transformational role requiring someone who can assess our current state, identify opportunities for enhancement, and implement sustainable improvements. As many stakeholders are still building their public company expertise, you will need to balance education and enablement with driving continued maturation of our controls framework. This role demands someone who thrives in technical complexity and can dive extraordinarily deep into complex IT General Controls (ITGCs) and IT Application Controls (ITACs).About the RoleYou will own the complete SOX compliance lifecycle—from scoping and risk assessment through testing, remediation, and continuous improvement. Given our organization's complexity and the team's evolving SOX maturity, you must be both a technical expert and an effective educator, capable of building SOX competency across finance, technology, and operations while strengthening our foundational controls.Critical focus areas include:Program enhancement and maturation: You'll evaluate our existing SOX program, identify areas for strengthening, and implement improvements to ensure we continue building a robust, efficient compliance framework.Deep technical expertise in ITGCs and ITACs: You'll navigate complex technology environments, including modern cloud architectures, APIs, data pipelines, DevOps practices, and integrated systems. Surface-level understanding won't suffice—you must go into the weeds to truly understand control design and operating effectiveness.Education and enablement: You'll continue developing organizational SOX capability through training programs and hands-on guidance to stakeholders building their public company expertise.Framework optimization: You'll refine and mature our controls framework, making it more efficient, risk-based, and scalable for our unique business model and technology stack.You'll partner closely with executive leadership, finance, IT/Engineering, external auditors, and other key stakeholders to establish financial reporting integrity and build sustainable compliance practices.About the TeamYou'll lead and strengthen the SOX compliance function, establishing it as a trusted center of excellence. You'll work across the organization—collaborating with finance, accounting, IT, security, legal, and business operations—to embed controls thinking into how we operate. This is a high-impact, high-visibility role where your expertise will directly shape our compliance maturity and risk posture.Key ResponsibilitiesSOX Program Leadership & OptimizationLead the end-to-end SOX compliance program, driving continuous improvement and maturationAssess and enhance our scoping methodology to ensure appropriate coverage of in-scope systems, processes, and controlsRefine process narratives, risk-control matrices, and control documentation for clarity and completenessExecute risk assessments to validate and prioritize key financial, operational, and IT controlsEnsure compliance with Section 404(b) of SOX and PCAOB audit standardsIdentify and implement efficiency opportunities while maintaining control effectivenessIT Controls Expertise (ITGCs & ITACs)Go exceptionally deep into IT General Controls across access management, change management, computer operations, and program developmentAssess and strengthen IT Application Controls within complex, interconnected technology environmentsEvaluate controls in modern tech stacks including cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), Saa