Principal ATA Engineer

Principal Software Development Engineer

Car Gurus is looking for a Principal Software Development Engineer to help define and deliver the next generation of car recommendations for millions of shoppers. The Recommendations Team helps shoppers find the right cars by surfacing relevant vehicles, and helpful next steps across search, listings, saved cars, and AI-powered experiences.

In this role, you will provide technical leadership across the recommendation domain, from shopper understanding and preference signals to ranking, personalization, experimentation, reliability, and the product experiences that make recommendations useful and trustworthy. You will work closely with Data Science, Product, and other engineering teams to turn advances in machine learning and AI into intuitive consumer experiences that help shoppers find the right car faster.

You'll shape architecture and technical strategy, write code, mentor engineers, and work closely with teams across Car Gurus.

What you'll do:

• Set the technical direction for our recommendation platform and drive architecture across multiple teams.
• Build scalable recommendation systems using shopper, vehicle, inventory, and behavioral signals.
• Partner with Data Science to product ionize models and continuously improve recommendation quality.
• Drive personalization, ranking, experimentation, and AI-powered recommendation experiences throughout 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 design and code reviews.
• Leverage AI-assisted development to accelerate delivery while maintaining high standards for quality, security, and reliability.

What you'll bring:

• 10+ years of software engineering experience building and operating 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 driving complex, multi-quarter initiatives.
• Strong experience with Kotlin, Java, C#, Python, or similar languages;
  Kotlin is preferred.
• Strong SQL and relational database experience, including performance considerations.
• Experience partnering with Data Science or ML teams to bring models into production.
• Excellent communication and influence skills, with a track record of aligning technical and cross-functional partners.
• Hands-on technical leadership, including coding, architecture, design reviews, and mentoring engineers.
• Curiosity about AI and experience using AI to improve products and engineering productivity.
• Experience building recommendation, personalization, search, ranking, marketplace, or discovery systems.
• Experience with machine learning platforms, real-time or batch feature pipelines, experimentation systems, model evaluation, or recommendation metrics.
• Experience building consumer products that help users compare options, make decisions, or navigate a complex purchase journey.
• Experience with cloud-native architectures, event-driven systems, streaming data, and high-volume services.

Position Pay Range: $170,000—$212,000 USD

Working at Car Gurus:

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 while making an impact in personally meaningful ways. A flexible hybrid model and robust time off policies encourage work-life balance and individual well-being.

Thoughtful perks like daily free lunch, a new car discount, meditation and fitness apps, commuting cost coverage, and more help our people create space for what matters most in their personal and professional lives.

We welcome all:

Car Gurus strives to be a place to which people can bring the ultimate expression of themselves and their potential—starting with our hiring process. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, or sexual orientation. We foster an inclusive environment that values people for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives.

That's why we hope you'll apply even if you don't check every box listed in the job description. We also encourage you to tell your recruiter if you require accommodations to participate in our hiring process due to a disability so we can provide the appropriate support. We want to know what only you can bring to Car Gurus.