Software Engineering Manager II, Consumer 360

Credit Acceptance; United States; Remote; USD 155,000 - 228,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(K) match

Adoption assistance

Parental leave

Tuition reimbursement

Comprehensive medical/dental/vision

Job summary

Credit Acceptance is seeking a Software Engineering Manager II to lead and grow cross-functional engineering teams that build and operate distributed, API-driven, cloud-native platforms. You will own the design, delivery, and lifecycle governance of API platforms and drive AI adoption across the SDLC.

The role emphasizes engineering excellence, customer obsession, and an owner’s mindset, with travel to Southfield, MI as needed and primarily remote work from home.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent experience.
• Minimum of 5 years' experience leading engineering teams.
• Proven experience in technical leadership, mentorship, cross-functional project execution, setting and executing on technical vision and strategy.
• Extensive experience implementing Agile and DevOps practices including test driven, incremental releases, CI, and deployment pipeline automation.
• Experience in microservices design strategies and implementation including migration planning, service granularity, interservice communication, traceability, orchestration, and failure isolation.
• Experience with Cloud migrations and working in a mixed on-prem / cloud environment (container orchestration, security, serverless).
• Experience leading teams that design and operate reliable distributed services at scale, including performance, observability, failure recovery, and applying AI where it improves system capabilities or operations.
• Experience creating reusable, developer-friendly platforms with self-service onboarding, API observability, and applied AI capabilities such as intelligent APIs, tool/function calling, and MCP-based integrations.
• Experience building secure, scalable, and cost-efficient cloud platforms, including deployment automation and applied AI workloads such as RAG, model services, agents, and AI-enabled engineering workflows.

Responsibilities

• Leads and mentors team members on essential agile and product mindset tenets including early learning, self-organized teams, cross functionality, customer obsession, outcome focused, incremental delivery and test driven.
• Participates in work planning processes to ensure the most important work is aligned to the appropriate team, that work is broken down enough that outcomes can be delivered incrementally.
• Leads and mentors cross functional team members on building world class products that deliver customer delight and business value
• Designs solutions to meet requirements for initiatives involving multiple team applications as well as applications owned by other teams.
• Supports delivery teams to ensure process and technology standards are consistently followed to enable consistent delivery of value.
• Develops and tracks delivery metrics while monitoring technical health of the product, informs progress toward delivery goals, and provides support appropriately when needed.
• Builds effective teams by ensuring you have the right people and setting clear expectations
• Monitors and evaluates team performance and continuously coach and mentor team members
• Sets up your team for operational success by having a sound understanding on the system ecosystem, architecture, technologies and system domains and how these are used to achieve business outcomes.
• Is an active participant in on-call escalation and incident management
• Owns the design, delivery, and lifecycle governance of API platforms and services used across teams - driving contract-first design, versioning and deprecation discipline, reuse, and consumer experience.
• Drives adoption of AI across the software development lifecycle (ADLC), establishing standards, guardrails, and measures of effectiveness for AI-assisted engineering within the team.
• Guides the team in identifying, designing, and delivering AI-enabled capabilities - including agentic solutions - with appropriate evaluation, human-in-the-loop controls, observability, and responsible-use practices.

Skills

Leadership

Agile methodologies

DevOps practices

AI-assisted engineering

Cloud platforms

Microservices design

Communication skills

Cross-functional collaboration

Technical vision & strategy

Education

Bachelor's Degree or equivalent experience

Job description

Credit Acceptance is proud to be an award-winning company recognized both locally and nationally across multiple workplace categories. Our world-class culture is shaped by dedicated team members who are driven to succeed as professionals individually and together as a team. Backed by a strong product, exceptional people, and a stable financial foundation, we've grown into a leading provider of used and new car financing across the country.

Our Engineering and Analytics Team Members utilize the latest technology to develop, monitor, and maintain complex practices that help optimize our success. Our Team Members value being challenged, are encouraged to express their ideas, and have the flexibility to enjoy work life balance. We build intrinsic value by partnering with all functions of our business to support their success and make strategic business decisions. We focus on professional development and continuous improvement while enjoying a casual work environment and Great Place to Work culture!

The Software Engineering Manager II leads and grows cross-functional engineering teams that build and operate distributed, API-driven, cloud-native platforms. This leader is accountable for engineering excellence, delivery outcomes, and the technical health of the products their teams own - and for bringing modern AI capability into both the products we build and the way we build them.

Outcomes and Activities:

• This position will work from home; occasional planned travel to an assigned Southfield, Michigan office location may be required. However, this position is permitted to work at a Southfield, Michigan office location if requested by the team member.
• Leads and mentors team members on essential agile and product mindset tenets including early learning, self-organized teams, cross functionality, customer obsession, outcome focused, incremental delivery and test driven.
• Participates in work planning processes to ensure the most important work is aligned to the appropriate team, that work is broken down enough that outcomes can be delivered incrementally.
• Leads and mentors cross functional team members on building world class products that deliver customer delight and business value
• Designs solutions to meet requirements for initiatives involving multiple team applications as well as applications owned by other teams.
• Supports delivery teams to ensure process and technology standards are consistently followed to enable consistent delivery of value.
• Develops and tracks delivery metrics while monitoring technical health of the product, informs progress toward delivery goals, and provides support appropriately when needed.
• Builds effective teams by ensuring you have the right people and setting clear expectations
• Monitors and evaluates team performance and continuously coach and mentor team members
• Sets up your team for operational success by having a sound understanding on the system ecosystem, architecture, technologies and system domains and how these are used to achieve business outcomes.
• Is an active participant in on-call escalation and incident management
• Owns the design, delivery, and lifecycle governance of API platforms and services used across teams - driving contract-first design, versioning and deprecation discipline, reuse, and consumer experience.
• Drives adoption of AI across the software development lifecycle (ADLC), establishing standards, guardrails, and measures of effectiveness for AI-assisted engineering within the team.
• Guides the team in identifying, designing, and delivering AI-enabled capabilities - including agentic solutions - with appropriate evaluation, human-in-the-loop controls, observability, and responsible-use practices.

Competencies:

The following items detail how you will be successful in this role.

• Customer Empathy: Customer Empathy is the ability to understand the perspectives, pain points, and experiences of customers. It involves actively putting oneself in the customer's shoes, comprehending their needs and challenges, and using that understanding to provide a better, more customer-centric experience.
• Engineering Excellence: Engineering Excellence is about bringing great craftsmanship and thought leadership to deliver an outstanding product that delights customers and solves for the business. This involves the pursuit and achievement of high standards, best practices, innovation, and superior solutions.
• One Team: A One Team mindset refers to a collaborative approach across the organization, where individuals work together seamlessly, without boundaries, as a single, cohesive team. Shared goals, open communication and mutual support create a sense of collective purpose. This enables teams to navigate challenges and pursue shared objectives more effectively.
• Owner's Mindset: Owner's Mindset involves adopting a set of behaviors that reflect a sense of responsibility, accountability, strategic thinking, and a proactive approach to managing your domain. As an owner, you understand the business and your domain(s) deeply and solve for the right outcome for the domain(s) and the business.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent experience.
• Minimum of 5 years' experience leading engineering teams.
• Proven experience in technical leadership, capable of providing mentorship, cross-functional project execution, setting and executing on technical vision and strategy
• Extensive experience implementing Agile and DevOps practices including but not limited to test driven,incremental releases, continuous integration, and deployment pipeline automation.
• Experience in microservices design strategies and implementation including migration planning, service granularity, interservice communication, traceability, orchestration, and failure isolation
• Experience with Cloud migrations and working in a mixed on-prem / cloud environment (container orchestration, security, serverless)
• Experience leading teams that design and operate reliable distributed services at scale, including performance, observability, failure recovery, and applying AI where it improves system capabilities or operations.
• Experience creating reusable, developer-friendly platforms with self-service onboarding, API observability, and applied AI capabilities such as intelligent APIs, tool/function calling, and MCP-based integrations.
• Experience building secure, scalable, and cost-efficient cloud platforms, including deployment automation and applied AI workloads such as RAG, model services, agents, and AI-enabled engineering workflows.

Preferred Experience:

• 4 years' experience of leading initiatives in a Java ecosystem
• Track record of identifying opportunities to improve outcomes via new tools and approaches, evaluating and measuring candidate solutions, and successfully advocating for their adoption
• Experience applying appropriate levels of transactional and race condition-resilient approaches, including database locking, distributed transactions (XA), SAGA pattern
• Ability to describe and design decoupled system transaction models that are resilient to upstream and downstream outages with appropriate recovery models
• Experience implementing and operationalizing rules engines
• Experience modernizing or decomposing legacy monoliths into API-first, cloud-native services.
• Experience introducing AI capability into an existing engineering organization - building the adoption plan, upskilling engineers, and measuring the impact on delivery speed and quality.
• Exposure to AI platform and tooling ecosystems (model providers and gateways, agent frameworks, vector databases, evaluation and observability tooling for LLM-based systems).

Knowledge and Skills:

• Thought leader with deep technical expertise with the proven ability to influence and partner with business to innovate and drive outcomes
• Ability to communicate complex technical information (both verbal and written) to all levels, including senior leadership
• Ability to solve problems at the source by offering simple, working solutions.
• Anticipates the impact of a change or project across multiple systems.
• Responds promptly and effectively to resolve incidents, tasks, and projects.
• Demonstrated ability and motivation to teach others
• Ability to gain trust of others and builds solid relationships across and vertically throughout the organization
• Effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment.
• Able to separate durable engineering fundamentals from hype when evaluating emerging AI tools and patterns, and to make pragmatic build-vs-buy and adopt-vs-wait decisions.

Target Compensation:

A competitive base salary range from $155,263 - $227,719. This position is eligible for an annual variable bonus of cash and equity, between 15-30%. Bonus amounts are based on individual performance. Final compensation within the range is influenced by many factors including role-specific skills, depth and experience level, industry background, relevant education and certifications.

Candidates who reside in the following major metropolitan areas may be eligible for a premium on top of the posted range based on their specific zone: San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego.

Benefits

• Excellent benefits package that includes 401(K) match, adoption assistance, parental leave, tuition reimbursement, comprehensive medical/ dental/vision and many nonstandard benefits that make us a Great Place to Work

Our Company Values:

To be successful in this role, Team Members need to be:

• Positive by maintaining resiliency and focusing on solutions
• Respectful by collaborating and actively listening
• Insightful by cultivating innovation, accumulating business and role specific knowledge, demonstrating self-awareness and making quality decisions
• Direct by effectively communicating and conveying courage
• Earnest by taking accountability, applying feedback and effectively planning and priority setting

To create an environment where people do their best work, we focus on the dimensions of Organizational Health. All leaders must:

• Identify the Right People by recognizing top talent
• Set Clear Expectations by managing change and directing others
• Train team members and focus on developing talent
• Performance Manage by ensuring accountability and driving results
• Create the Right Environment by establishing trust and managing conflict
• Maintain the Right Number of team members needed to build an effective team

Expectations:

• Remain compliant with our policies processes and legal guidelines
• All other duties as assigned
• Attendance as required by department

P.S.

We have great details around our stats, success, history and more. We're proud of our