• Become a Shef
• Engineering (Various)
• Global Services (Various)
• Growth (Various)
• Legal (Various)
• Ops (Various)
• Product & Design (Various)

People often complain that tasting a culture’s cuisine at a restaurant is not the same as tasting its homemade meals. Shef changes this by enabling people to taste authentic homemade food while local cooks, named “shefs,” earn an income by making food for their community. For shefs, it means an income of around $1,000 per week without the headache, risk, and commitment of opening a restaurant, all while allowing them the flexibility to choose when they want to work. Shef also serves as an alternate source of income for mostly women and people of color, who make up 83% and 92% of its shefs, respectively. However, building this two-sided marketplace isn’t easy. One challenge Shef faces is ensuring food is prepared safely, which they have tackled by having every shef pass a food safety exam. Another larger challenge is with laws preventing the sale of homemade food. In regions without home cooking laws, shefs cook out of “commercial kitchens or other legally permissible facilities.” However, the company told us that “44 home cooking bills were introduced across 29 states in the last year alone, so we're hopeful that we'll see a bunch of new home cooking laws come into effect soon so that more people can gain access to a meaningful income.” It will also use part of its recent funding to lobby for home cooking laws. Shef’s challenges are great, but if successful, it can prove to be another industry shift for the consumer.