Software Development Engineer II, Developer Experience Architecture

Who we are

At Car Gurus (NASDAQ: CARG), our mission is to give people the power to reach their destination. We started as a small team of developers determined to bring trust and transparency to car shopping. Since then, our history of innovation and go‑to‑market acceleration has driven industry‑leading growth. In fact, we’re the largest and fastest‑growing automotive marketplace, and we’ve been profitable for over 15 years.

The market is evolving, and we are too, moving the entire automotive journey online and guiding our customers through every step. That includes everything from the sale of an old car to the financing, purchase, and delivery of a new one. Today, tens of millions of consumers visit  each month, and 30,000 dealerships use our products. But they're not the only ones who love Car Gurus—our employees do, too.

We have a people‑first culture that fosters kindness, collaboration, and innovation, and empowers our Gurus with tools to fuel their career growth. Disrupting a trillion‑dollar industry requires fresh and diverse perspectives. Come join us for the ride!

The Developer Experience Architecture team at Car Gurus builds the platforms, tooling, and standards that make hundreds of engineers faster, safer, and more productive. You will contribute to some of our highest‑leverage initiatives: standardizing AI agentic development (Claude Code, our internal plugin marketplace, and MCP integrations), evolving our authentication and identity platform (Keycloak, OAuth2/OIDC), and improving the paved paths for service and job creation on AWS.

These are complex, cross‑cutting problems with global impact. You will own well‑scoped pieces of work and partner with engineers and product managers across the org, with support and mentorship from senior teammates. And no, you do not need to know about cars to work here.

• Build and ship developer tooling, framework components, and reusable templates that raise engineering productivity and quality
• Contribute to our agentic development ecosystem:
  Claude Code configuration, plugins and skills, and MCP servers
• Strengthen the Auth service and agent identity model using Keycloak, OAuth2, and OIDC
• Build and operate services with Java, Spring Boot, AWS, and Kubernetes
• Apply our standards, guardrails, and best practices in your work, and help product teams adopt them
• Investigate, root cause, and improve system reliability and performance

• Two or more years of hands‑on, fullstack software design and development, including at least one year of Java.
• Experience with client and server side JavaScript, including React, Node, and Remix, is a plus.
• Experience building web applications and working with cloud‑native systems on AWS or similar cloud providers.
• Exposure to authentication and identity standards (OAuth2/OIDC), or a strong appetite to learn them.
• Experience using modern AI coding tools (assistants, agents, MCP) on real engineering work, or eagerness to adopt them.
• Comfort writing tests, using observability tools, and owning well‑scoped tasks end to end.
• Curious, collaborative, and eager to learn.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent.

The displayed range represents the expected annual base salary / On‑Target Earnings (OTE) for this position. On‑Target Earnings (OTE) is inclusive of base salary and on‑target commission earnings, which applies exclusively to sales roles. Individual pay within this range is determined by work location and other factors such as job‑related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. This annual base salary forms part of a comprehensive Total Rewards Package.

In addition to benefits, this role may qualify for discretionary bonuses/incentives and Restricted Stock Units (RSUs).

$112,000 — $141,000 USD

We reward our Gurus’ curiosity and passion with best‑in‑class benefits and compensation, including equity for all employees, both when they start and as they continue to grow with us. Our career development and corporate giving programs, as well as our employee resource groups (ERGs) and communities, help people build connections…