Cars Commerce

Compensation

Full Description

Be essential at Cars Commerce At Cars Commerce, we’re fanatical about simplifying everything about car buying and selling. We do right by our customers and consumers to better connect the industry with simplified and tierless technology to enhance, measure and drive local automotive retail. Whether through our No.1 most recognized marketplace, Cars.com, our industry-leading digital experience, Dealer Inspire, our trade and appraisal technology, AccuTrade, our reputation-based digital wholesale auction marketplace, Dealerclub, or our new Cars Commerce Media Network, Cars Commerce is essential for success in the automotive industry. No one ever travels alone here: at its core, Cars Commerce is collaboration. In fact, it’s built into the very fabric of our shared values. We like to say we Rise Together – putting people at the center of what we do, from consumer to customer to community. Life at Cars Commerce makes it easy when we share the ethos to be Open to All, encouraging open-minded communication because we know diverse thinking yields better outcomes. But critical to our success is Caring to Challengeand Taking Ownership, fueling a competitive spirit in a respectful environment where we think about tomorrow but act today. At our foundation, we have integrity, Doing the Right Thing, even when it’s hard. It’s our shared commitment to these values that makes Cars Commerce a place where growth becomes not only possible, but downright unavoidable. But don’t take our word for it. As a U.S. News & World Report Best Company to Work For in 2024, we're obsessive about the employee experience. We are among the top 20% being declared “Best” of our industry based on six critical factors that are important to employee wellbeing, like quality of pay, benefits, work life balance and more. About the Role [100% remote. May require onsite interviews] Cars Commerce is unifying the car-buying journey on a new, data-driven platform, and Core Services supplies the identity, inventory, lead-delivery and data-streaming capabilities on which every brand in our portfolio relies. An exceptional opportunity to influence the future of our platforms and drive meaningful change at scale to make an impact on the industry. Join us in shaping the future of Automotive Commerce as we build out this new platform! As a Senior Software Engineering Manager for the Inventory Services Team, you’ll guide autonomous teams that own several high-throughput, API-first services built in Elixir/Phoenix and deployed on AWS EKS. You’ll work shoulder-to-shoulder with Product leadership to turn six- to twelve-month business goals into an incremental, measurable roadmap; champion sound engineering practices around observability, security and on-call health; and serve as incident commander and steward of production reliability for your domain. Beyond your immediate teams, you’ll influence platform architecture, shape cross-domain integrations that unlock new revenue streams, and help set the technical direction for the wider organization. About You You’re an empathetic, outcomes-oriented leader who balances people, process and product. Perhaps you’ve shipped or overseen services handling thousands of requests per second, mentored senior engineers and first-time managers, or negotiated scope changes without losing sight of customer value—but you still see yourself as a lifelong learner who uses data rather than dogma to improve. You foster psychological safety, celebrate diverse viewpoints and believe that the best ideas can come from anywhere. Even if Elixir or automotive retail isn’t already on your resume, your curiosity, bias for action and commitment to inclusive leadership matter more than a perfect skills match—so if the mission excites you, we encourage you to apply. Responsibilities Lead multi-team delivery: Direct one or more teams that own several high-throughput, API-first services; set clear objectives, groom at least one full increment of backlog, and hold the bar on Jira hygiene and velocity transparency. Drive product road-mapping & prioritization: Partner with Product Managers to translate six- to twelve-month business goals into incremental, measurable milestones; balance new feature work with technical debt and platform investments. Coach, develop, and scale talent: Provide frequent 1-1s, actionable feedback, and growth plans for senior engineers and leads; mentor emerging managers as the org expands; champion an inclusive culture of psychological safety and continuous learning. Steward production reliability & security: Own SLOs, on-call rotations, incident command, and post-mortem learning; ensure adherence to security and compliance maintenance guidelines and vulnerability-remediation SLAs. Operational excellence through metrics: Monitor DORA, change-failure rate, incident MTTR, and CapEx accuracy; initiate improvement plans when trends deviate from targets. Architectural guidance & modernization: Review designs for extensibility, backwards compatibility, and cost efficiency; promote modern practices in CI/CD, observability, and DevSecOps across all owned systems. Cross-functional influence: Coordinate integrations with adjacent domains (Inventory, Leads, Data Engineering), negotiate timelines and API contracts, and represent Core Services in company-wide program reviews. Hiring & org shaping: Partner with Talent Acquisition to build a diverse pipeline, run structured interviews aligned to this guide, and make evidence-based hiring decisions; forecast head-count needs as product scope grows. Qualifications Experience: 10+ years in software engineering with 5+ years leading engineers; proven track record shipping and operating business-critical backend services at scale. Technical depth: Strong background in cloud-native architectures (AWS, Docker, Kubernetes/EKS), event-driven and API-driven systems; comfortable reviewing designs for scalability, resilience, and cost. Delivery mastery: Demonstrated ability to plan increments, forecast capacity, and use Jira, DORA, and DX metrics to drive predictable outcomes and continuous improvement. Leadership & people development: Skilled at coaching senior/staff engineers, giving constructive feedback, resolving conflict, and fostering an inclusive, high-trust culture aligned with company values. Product partnership: Comfortable co-authoring OKRs, making scope/risk trade-offs, and communicating decisions to executives and cross-functional stakeholders. Security & reliability mindset: Familiar with incident management best practices, observability stacks (DataDog), vulnerability remediation, and DevSecOps pipelines. Communication excellence: Able to tailor technical and non-technical narratives to engineers, product managers, and executives alike; proven record of influencing beyond direct authority. Bonus points: Experience with Elixir/Phoenix, automotive-retail data pipelines, or leading platform modernization initiatives. Salary Range $154,200.00-192,750.00 Our Comprehensive Benefits Package includes: Medical, Dental & Vision Healthcare Plans New Hire Stipend for Home Office Set-Up Generous PTO Refuel - a service based recognition program where employees receive additional paid time away to learn grow and reset Paid Holidays, Floating Holiday, Volunteer Day, Recharge Day Learn more about our Benefits, Perks, & Culture on our LinkedIn Life Pages! We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. California Applicants: Click here to review our California Privacy Policy for Applicants. For current employees, please click here to review our California Privacy Policy for Employees. Welcome! At Cars Commerce, we think big, push boundaries, and rise together as a team. It’s all the challenge and energy of a job in the tech industry, backed by 25 years of proven resilience and growth as a leading consumer brand. Imagine getting to work on a team with a bold mission to simplify everything about buying and selling cars. A culture that’s a unique mix of innovation and collaboration. Exciting training and development opportunities that empower you to take ownership of your career. For our employees, every day is an opportunity. We’re a remote-first workplace that embraces diversity at every level. Inspired by our values, we intentionally create opportunities for our employees to grow and make an impact in our industry and local communities. Let’s move your career forward together. Cars Commerce is an audience-driven technology company empowering automotive that simplifies everything about buying and selling cars. The Cars Commerce platform includes the flagship automotive marketplace and dealer reputation site Cars.com, innovative digital marketing technology and services from Dealer Inspire, industry-leading trade-in and appraisal technology from AccuTrade, an exclusive in-market media network, and powerful and predictive AI technologies that enable more efficient and profitable retail operations. Cars Commerce is the essential partner to stay one step ahead in automotive.