Sr. Director, Architecture & Core Services Engineering

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.

No one ever travels alone here: at its core, Cars Commerce is collaboration. In fact, it’s built into the very fabric of our shared values. We like to say we Rise Together – putting people at the center of what we do, from consumer to customer to community. Life at Cars Commerce makes it easy when we share the ethos to be Open to All, encouraging open-minded communication because we know diverse thinking yields better outcomes. But critical to our success is Caring to Challenge and Taking Ownership, fueling a competitive spirit in a respectful environment where we think about tomorrow but act today. At our foundation, we have integrity, Doing the Right Thing, even when it’s hard. It’s our shared commitment to these values that makes Cars Commerce a place where growth becomes not only possible, but downright unavoidable.

But don’t take our word for it. As a U.S. News & World Report Best Company to Work For in 2024, we're obsessive about the employee experience. We are among the top 20% being declared “Best” of our industry based on six critical factors that are important to employee wellbeing, like quality of pay, benefits, work life balance and more.

About the Role

Cars Commerce builds solutions for automotive dealerships, manufacturers, and consumers. Our driving force is to deliver one platform to simplify everything about buying and selling cars. Our platform enables dealerships and OEMs with innovative technical solutions and data-driven intelligence to better reach and influence ready-to-buy shoppers, increase inventory turn and gain market share. To support the growth and tighter integration of our existing brands like Cars.com, Dealer Inspire, and AccuTrade we are seeking an Experienced Senior Leader to help drive our Core Services and Architecture initiatives. This role and the organization is pivotal to leading a key part of the broader business Enterprise Platform strategy.

Success in this role requires exceptional leadership, communication, and management skills. You have a proven track record of delivering solutions for large cross functional organizations. You have hands-on senior leadership experience, and a strong belief in transparency and accountability. You have hands-on experience that has fueled your knowledge and experience on your journey into leadership. You have experience hiring and developing the skills and talents of others. You care about what you do, and the people around you. Ownership is a key characteristic you inspire your teams to ingrain in their culture.

Responsibilities:

• Create a Vision for how Core Services and Architecture creates a foundation for Product Engineering to innovate with speed
• Lead the practice of Architecture across Product and Platform Engineering, including direct line management of key Architecture roles
• Establish of platform architecture standards, processes, and best practices
• Partner with Product Engineering Architecture to ensure delivery of key shared services
• Lead Core Services teams to deliver operationally mature core services and APIs for partners and 3rd parties
• Lead core services teams to deliver value add functionality and features that enable internal teams
• Eliminate bottlenecks in shared services providing value to the Product Engineering and Enterprise teams
• Develop cost efficiencies through Core Service design and elimination of duplicative or under-utilized systems
• Establish measurable and meaningful goals/OKRs/KPIs for your organization and regularly report metrics to stakeholders
• Solicit requirements from collaborators and foster excellent communication with stakeholders
• Manage ambiguity to deliver results i.e., help shape solutions and prioritize deliverables to align with the Cars Commerce vision
• Hire, coach, and manage diverse teams with varying skill sets and experience
• Establish training standards and performance expectations for leaders and individual contributors
• Be an ambassador of Cars Commerce's Core Values.

Minimum Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, related degree, or equivalent practical experience
• 12+ years of technical experience
• 8+ years of progressive people management experience of technical teams
• Deep knowledge in Architecture and System Design
• Experience and knowledge of modern API standards and methodologies
• Extensive experience working in Cloud Native environments specifically AWS
• Experience designing and operating SaaS systems at scale
• Experience leading large scale enterprise wide software development initiatives
• Experience leading multiple teams, managing many levels of leaders and individual contributors
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code, DevOps, SRE concepts and best practices
• Experience implementing Agile software development across multiple teams or organizations
• Strong track record of delivering results and are able to effectively prioritize and manage multiple competing priorities with various business stakeholders
• Hands-on experience with modern programming languages.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working with high traffic marketplace style applications on web and mobile apps
• Strong track record of delivering results and are able to effectively prioritize and manage multiple competing priorities with various business stakeholders
• Experience leading Architecture/Principal level engineers
• Experience leading large scale architecture initiatives
• Experience leading Platform Engineering teams.
• Experience using modern monitoring tools (Cloudwatch, DataDog, etc).
• Experience with CI/CD tooling, continuous integration, and continuous delivery mechanisms.

In the spirit of pay transparency, we are excited to share the base salary range for this position which is not inclusive of bonuses, benefits or other forms of compensation that the position may be eligible for. If you are hired at Cars Commerce, your final base salary compensation will be determined based on factors such as skills and/or experience. If the salary range is close to what you're seeking, then we encourage you to apply and learn more about the total compensation package for this position.

Our Comprehensive Benefits Package includes:

• Medical, Dental & Vision Healthcare Plans
• 401(k) with Company Match + Immediate Vesting
• New Hire Stipend for Home Office Set-Up
• Employee Stock Purchase Program
• 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
• Learn more about our Benefits, Perks, & Culture on our LinkedIn Life Pages!

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. California Applicants: Click here to review our California Privacy Policy for Applicants. For current employees, please click here to review our California Privacy Policy for Employees.