Lead Software Engineer

McMaster-Carr; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 235,000 - 310,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation stipend

Signing bonus

Mentorship programs

Employee resource groups

Medical, dental, vision plans with no月

Paid parental leave

Industry-leading retirement accounts

Job summary

McMaster-Carr is a leading e-Commerce company serving industrial customers for over 120 years. We offer end‑to‑end ownership, fast delivery, and a culture emphasizing clear execution and long‑term growth.

This role provides a pathway to senior engineering management and technical leadership, with growth tied to impact rather than tenure. As an engineer on our platform, you will tackle high‑impact domains like AI assistants, advanced search/navigation, end‑to‑end ordering, and

Qualifications

• 4+ years of professional fullstack or backend software engineering.
• Experience delivering proof‑of‑concepts and resilient production systems.
• Ability to design with SOLID principles and system architecture in mind.
• Experience collaborating cross‑functionally with operations, product, and UX teams.
• Commitment to mentoring and coaching teammates to raise the team's output.
• Track record of building scalable platforms and customer experiences.

Responsibilities

• Learn goals and map the customer journey while delivering small, impactful features in the codebase.
• Deliver durable, thoughtful solutions that improve the customer experience and create team momentum.

Skills

Fullstack/Backend engineering

Systems Design

Cross-functional collaboration

Mentoring

Problem solving

Tools

Selenium

Playwright

Xunit

Jest

Kafka

MQ

Job description

McMaster‑Carr is a leading e‑commerce company that industrial customers have trusted for more than 120 years. Our products help customers restore manufacturing lines quickly, keep operations running smoothly, and prototype the next generation of innovative products.

We earn that trust by offering the right products, making them easy to find, and delivering them fast so customers can solve problems with speed, precision, and confidence. This role is a pathway to senior engineering management and technical leadership—your growth is determined by your impact, not by tenure.

Our Culture

We intentionally cultivate a culture focused on clear execution and long‑term growth. We are responsible for building systems that endure for decades and support the company’s long-term growth. That responsibility means engineering work starts with a deep understanding of the problem and its impact, grounded in clear ownership, open communication, and direct feedback. Our teams are trusted to make thoughtful decisions about how work gets done, balancing a high bar for quality with practical execution. As an engineering leader here, you'll have significant autonomy with end‑to‑end ownership where you make product decisions while building things real people interact with directly.

How You'll Make An Impact

Our engineering teams operate within domains: distinct, high‑impact areas of our platform that let engineers dive deep, build expertise, and release work that matters. Right now, we’re actively growing in the following areas:

• McMaster.ai: Build and scale our domain‑expert AI assistant that turns McMaster’s product data and customer history into a continuously learning assistant—interpreting intent, narrowing options, explaining tradeoffs, and carrying context across sessions to make complex industrial work feel effortless.
• Customer Navigation: build and evolve the systems that help our customers find, evaluate, and understand millions of industrial products across our digital publications, including improving search relevance with LLMs and simplifying navigation across our product offering.
• Order-to‑Payment Flow: design and evolve end‑to‑end ordering experiences that reduce friction from checkout to mobile ordering.
• Product Merchandising: strengthen the internal platforms that power sourcing, inventory planning, receiving, and supplier relationships, helping the company make disciplined investments and scale responsibly.
• Fulfillment & Automation: lead development of software that integrates with warehouse operations, fulfillment, delivery, and customer service to reduce manual work and get orders to customers faster.

What You'll Do

• The first 30 days are about learning with purpose: understanding our goals, getting a clear picture of the customer journey, and building fluency in the codebase. As you onboard, you'll design and implement features that are small enough to help you ramp quickly, but substantial enough to matter.
• After you’ve delivered your first features, you’ll start taking on less‑defined challenges where you’ll sharpen requirements and produce thoughtful, durable solutions that meaningfully improve the customers experience. In doing so, you'll create clarity and momentum that enables you and your teammates to deliver exceptional experiences.

What You Bring

• Minimum 4+ years of professional fullstack or backend software engineering experience (see Software Engineer II role for earlier career experience)
• Experience in delivering proof‑of‑concepts and resilient production systems, contributing from early research and architectural design to development, launch, and iterative refinement.
• Ability to write high-quality, maintainable, and scalable code with Systems Design and SOLID principles.
• Experience improving system architecture, testing, and monitoring to ensure reliability and performance.
• A commitment to developing others; using code reviews, coaching, and shared best practices to help the team deliver its best work.
• Ability to collaborate cross‑functionally with operations, product, and UX teams to ensure business value and user impact.
• A track record of designing platforms and customer experiences that will endure over years while remaining close to the details of execution.

Technologies We Use

• Testing: Selenium, Playwright, Xunit, Jest
• Applied AI: RAG, Embeddings, Vectorization, Machine Learning, Computer Vision
• Messaging /Data Streaming: Kafka, MQ

Cash Compensation

• Total cash compensation is generally around $235,000 to $310,000 and includes a profit sharing based on company profitability.
• You will also receive a relocation stipend (if applicable) and signing bonus.
• Informal and formal mentorship
• Employee resource groups
• Medical, dental, pharmacy, and vision plans with no monthly premiums

Family & Future

• Paid parental leave for all new parents
• Adoption and surrogacy assistance
• First‑time home buyer assistance
• Industry‑leading company‑funded retirement accounts

Time Off

• Paid vacation and personal time

Who You Are

We’re looking for curious, driven engineers who thrive in collaborative environments and love solving hard problems. Ideal candidates will have:

• Experience designing and delivering large-scale, service‑oriented systems.
• Strong proficiency in compiled languages such as C#, Java, C++, or Rust.
• A thoughtful, analytical approach to problem‑solving and software design.
• Clear, confident communication skills across technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Interest in mentoring, coaching, and growing as a leader.

Equal Opportunity Employer

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and dedicated to providing employees a workplace with reasonable accommodations and free of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. At McMaster‑Carr, we do not make employment decisions based on age, ethnicity, citizenship status, military status, gender identity and expression, race, religion, disability status, marital status, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, or any other legally protected group.

This position is not eligible for work authorization sponsorship by McMaster‑Carr