Principal Software Engineer

Cars.com LLC; United States; Remote; USD 170,000 - 214,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative company is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead the development of scalable digital products. This role offers the opportunity to work remotely and collaborate with top-tier engineering talent. You will drive software architecture, mentor teams, and ensure best practices are followed to enhance the company's marketplace platforms. With a focus on both technical execution and leadership, this position is ideal for someone passionate about shaping the future of digital marketplaces in the automotive industry. Join a team that values creativity, collaboration, and continuous improvement, and take your career to new heights.

Benefits

Medical, Dental & Vision Healthcare Plans

New Hire Stipend for Home Office Set-Up

Generous PTO

Paid Holidays

Floating Holiday

Volunteer Day

Recharge Day

Employee Recognition Program

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software engineering experience with a focus on scalable digital products.
• Deep expertise in modern tech stacks and best practices for high-traffic applications.

Responsibilities

• Drive software architecture patterns and best practices across the enterprise.
• Support delivery of product and technical projects with clear success criteria.
• Mentor teams and ensure adherence to defined architecture and development patterns.

Skills

Software Architecture

Cloud Applications

Performance Optimization

AWS Ecosystem

CI/CD Practices

Technical Leadership

Frontend Development

Backend Development

DevOps Engineering

Job description

Principal Software Engineer page is loaded

Principal Software Engineer

Apply locations United States, Remote time type Full time posted on Posted 4 Days Ago job requisition id JR10404

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, or our new Cars Commerce Media Network, Cars Commerce is essential for success in the automotive industry.

RISE TOGETHER with us! Come be part of a team that's building the future of digital marketplaces. If you are an experienced Principal Software Engineer with a strong background and passion for marketplace platforms, let's connect!

We’re looking for a visionary hands-on Software Engineering leader to take on a high-impact role and help shape the future of our industry-leading products. Work from anywhere, collaborate with top-tier software engineering talent and perhaps interview on-site!

Since 1998, Cars Commerce helps tens of millions of people like you and me find their perfect car match. We’re looking for a Principal Software Engineer with 15+ years of aggregate software engineering experience to architect and evangelize how we build and scale our Websites / Dealer Inspire product.

This role has a high degree of agency, autonomy, and ambiguity. You’ll work with our core product, feature and platform teams to determine technical needs and constraints to guide our engineering strategies and practices. You’ll be a leader and a mentor – enabling teams around you to deliver effectively and efficiently.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Technical
  • Drive, own and create software architecture patterns and best practices that can be used across the enterprise
  • Work with Principal Engineers and Engineering Management to own and drive a roadmap for Engineering and Architecture initiatives
  • Actively coach department teams to consider maintainability and extensibility in their approach to technical design
  • Ensure department teams implement the tooling and techniques required to ship code consistently, securely, and quickly
• Execution
  • Support the delivery of both product and highly technical projects from start to finish across multiple quarters with milestones and clear success criteria, ensuring alignment with business and technical goals
  • Conduct thorough Architecture and Code Reviews and coach Engineers across the department on what good looks like through positive reinforcement and demonstration.
  • Ensure teams across the enterprise are adhering to defined architecture and software development patterns and best practices.
  • Understand ambiguous business problems related to your work as well as the work of your department; resolve them
• Collaboration & Communication
  • Produce excellent written products in technical designs, assessments, code reviews/PRs, technical strategy, project status and more
  • Build trust and rapport with Engineering and Product Management across the company to be viewed as subject matter expert
  • Distil highly-technical and/or abstract information for consumption by non-technical stakeholders and executives
  • Actively delivers situational & task-based feedback as well as feedback on overall performance to other teammates, their direct manager, senior management & individual contributors on outside teams, and cross functional stakeholders
• Leadership
  • Consider factors outside their immediate team's purview in how to automate, de-risk, and optimize their department’s delivery
  • The ability to create training programs to onboard engineers onto new technologies, systems, and architectures, and up-level those already privy
  • Ensure knowledge and lessons learned obtained by themselves as well as other teammates are shared across their department team as well as their department's cross functional stakeholders
  • Seek out opportunities to mentor other individuals, both formally and informally, across their department, create and manage projects in support of mentorship activities, set department best practices around how to effectively mentor individuals

Required Skill And Experience

• Deep expertise in modern tech stacks and best practices, you are advanced in multiple areas of building a scalable digital product from user experience to compute to data persistence to analytical concerns across those areas
• You have designed and implemented applications with reasonable scale (1M+ monthly visits) and/or revenue ($1+ MRR).
• You understand the complexities of working with modern technologies, and enjoy working through them to share lessons learned with fellow engineers
• 15+ years of software engineering experience, focused on frontend, backend and DevOps engineering
• 10+ years of experience architecting and building cloud applications for high-traffic, large-scale web applications
• Experience in building resilient and scalable software solutions with a deep understanding of performance optimization techniques across the stack.
• High proficiency with the AWS ecosystem
• Experience in CI/CD practices with an emphasis on delivering quality software
• Experience being a technical leader in a 100% remote environment, influencing stakeholders across design, engineering, and technology, both within your own organization and across an enterprise.

Salary Range $170,800.00-213,500.00

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

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.

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.

About Us

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.