Engineer II, AI/ML

About the role

The Engineer II, ML & AI Engineering role at CarMax is responsible for building and operating scalable machine learning and AI capabilities across the organization. You will partner closely with Data Scientists to productionize models and develop reliable inference services, with a focus on testing, monitoring, scalability, and operational excellence. This role plays a key part in delivering resilient, high‑performing AI and ML solutions that power critical business and customer experiences.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain production machine learning capabilities spanning feature engineering, training, evaluation, deployment, and model inference, with attention to latency, throughput, and cost.
• Design and build agentic AI systems, including tool use, orchestration, memory, and the evaluation harnesses and observability needed to run them reliably in production.
• Own the operational health of production ML and agentic systems: monitoring and alerting for model performance, data drift, and prediction quality, plus end‑to‑end on‑call incident response and follow‑through to prevent repeat failures.
• Collaborate with Data Scientists to translate experimental work into tested, maintainable, production‑grade code.
• Partner with engineering and product teams to turn machine learning models into mission‑critical, high‑visibility capabilities that support CarMax’s iconic customer experience.
• Demonstrate a passion for Data Science and Machine Learning, continuously driving innovation and improvement in these domains.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 2+ years of professional experience in software engineering, systems engineering, machine learning engineering, or AI engineering, including experience building, deploying, and supporting production applications in an enterprise environment.
• Proficiency in a programming language such as Python, Java, or C#, and hands‑on experience with ML frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Working knowledge of distributed databases (e.g., DynamoDB, Cosmos DB), caching systems, and vector databases, with experience applying them to high‑throughput, low‑latency production workloads.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to adapt messaging to technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Experience on a fast‑paced, highly collaborative agile team within a product‑oriented organization.

Preferred Qualifications

• Comfortable using AI coding agents to plan, implement, test, and review software, with sound judgment about where agent‑generated work requires human verification.
• Experience with MLOps practices: experiment tracking, model registries, reproducible training, and CI/CD or automated retraining for ML (MLflow, Azure ML, SageMaker, Kubeflow, or equivalent).
• Experience with model serving platforms and real‑time inference (Azure ML endpoints, Databricks, SageMaker, or equivalent).
• Experience designing or operating microservices and distributed architectures (containers, Kubernetes, service‑to‑service APIs).

Work Location and Arrangement

This role can be based out of the CarMax Home Office in Richmond, VA (onsite 4 days per week) or out of the Dallas Technology Hub in Plano, TX (onsite 2 days per week).

Work Authorization

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full‑time basis. Sponsorship will not be considered for this specific role.

About CarMax

CarMax disrupted the auto industry by delivering the honest, transparent and high‑integrity experience customers want and deserve. This innovative thinking around the way cars are bought and sold has helped us become the nation’s largest retailer of used cars, with over 250 locations nationwide. Our amazing team of more than 25,000 associates works together to deliver iconic customer experiences. Along the way, we help every associate grow their career and achieve their best, at work and in their community. We are recognized for our commitment to training and diversity and are one of the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For®.

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

CarMax is committed to bringing together people from different backgrounds and perspectives, providing employees with a safe, welcoming, and inclusive work environment. CarMax is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Pay

The annual salary for this position is $88,800 – $133,200. May be eligible for bonus and equity.

Benefits

• Paid sick time: up to 48 hours per year (accrued per pay period).
• Paid vacation: 80–200 hours per year after a 90‑day waiting period, based on years of continuous service.
• Paid holidays: 6 scheduled holidays plus 1 floating holiday (8 hours each). Holiday premium pay if worked on a scheduled holiday.
• Full‑time salaried associates receive paid time away with no specified limit for sick, vacation, bereavement, jury duty, holidays, floating holiday, etc., subject to manager approval.
• Additional benefits are detailed on the CarMax Benefits website.
• Reasonable accommodation will be considered upon request to complete the CarMax job application.