Principal AI & Recommendations Engineer

CarGurus LLC; Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 212,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Daily free lunch

New car discount

Meditation app

Fitness apps

Commuting cost coverage

Equity for all employees

Job summary

CarGurus LLC is seeking a Principal Software Development Engineer to define and deliver the next generation of car recommendations for millions of shoppers. You will lead the Recommendations Team, shaping architecture, signals, and AI-driven experiences across search, listings, and user journeys.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with Data Science and Product, and drive cross-functional initiatives while preserving reliability and security.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience on large-scale, customer-facing systems.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or similar field.
• Deep expertise in software architecture, distributed systems, APIs, and production engineering.
• Experience leading technical direction across teams and multi-quarter initiatives.
• Proficiency in Kotlin, Java, C#, Python (Kotlin preferred).
• Strong SQL and relational database experience with performance considerations.
• Experience partnering with Data Science or ML teams to deploy models.
• Excellent communication and influence skills with cross-functional partners.
• Hands-on leadership in coding, architecture, design reviews, mentoring.
• Curiosity about AI and using AI to improve products.
• Experience building recommender, personalization, search, ranking, marketplace, or discovery systems.
• Experience with cloud-native architectures, event-driven systems, streaming data, and high-volume services.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction for our recommendation platform across multiple teams.
• Build scalable recommendation systems using shopper, vehicle, inventory, and behavioral signals.
• Partner with Data Science to productionize models and continuously improve recommendation quality.
• Drive personalization, ranking, experimentation, and AI-powered experiences across the shopper journey.
• Lead complex, cross-functional initiatives from technical design through delivery and measurement.
• Improve the reliability, scalability, observability, and operational excellence of recommendation services.
• Influence technical decisions across the organization, mentor engineers, and raise the engineering bar through reviews.
• Leverage AI-assisted development to accelerate delivery while ensuring quality, security, and reliability.

Skills

10+ years exp

BS in CS/Engineering

Architectural leadership

Kotlin/Java/C#/Python

SQL

ML collaboration

Communication

Hands-on leadership

AI curiosity

Recommender systems

Cloud-native

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or similar field

Job description

CarGurus LLC is seeking a Principal Software Development Engineer to define and deliver the next generation of car recommendations for millions of shoppers. You will lead the Recommendations Team, shaping architecture, signals, and AI-driven experiences across search, listings, and user journeys.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with Data Science and Product, and drive cross-functional initiatives while preserving reliability and security.