Principal Software Engineer (hands-on)

About the Company

At Cars Commerce, we’re fanatical about simplifying everything about car buying and selling. We connect the automotive industry with simplified, tierless technology to enhance, measure, and drive local automotive retail. Our ecosystem includes the No. 1 most recognized marketplace, Cars.com, industry-leading digital experience platform Dealer Inspire, trade and appraisal technology AccuTrade, reputation-based digital wholesale auction marketplace Dealerclub, and the new Cars Commerce Media Network. Cars Commerce is essential for success in the automotive industry.

Our culture is built on collaboration and shared values: we Rise Together, putting people at the center of what we do. We foster open-minded communication (Open to All), encourage Caring to Challenge and Taking Ownership, and operate with integrity by Doing the Right Thing. These values drive growth and innovation, making Cars Commerce a place where success is unavoidable. We’re proud to be named one of Built In's 2026 Best Places to Work in Chicago and across the U.S.

About the Role

Join us in shaping the future of Automotive Commerce as we undergo a transformational shift to deliver a single platform that simplifies car buying and selling. We are unifying an ecosystem of automotive brands into a high-throughput, service-oriented platform. As a Principal Software Engineer, you will be the technical north star for the Platform Core Services team, which owns the high-concurrency engines—Identity, Inventory, and Leads—that power a multi-billion dollar marketplace.

This role is for a technical architect and "lead-from-the-front" builder who will drive this transformation. You’ll have end-to-end sovereignty over both backend systems and the product surfaces that transform data into actionable insights, from complex RBAC systems to sophisticated self-service UIs. As an AI-first organization, we leverage Claude Code to minimize boilerplate, allowing engineers to focus on high-order systems design. This is a rare opportunity to work at the scale of an industry leader with the velocity and intellectual freedom of a high-growth startup.

Responsibilities

• Define the evolution of our services to support sub-second latency and massive concurrency, bridging backend systems and modern, intuitive UI products.
• Redefine the software development lifecycle (SDLC) by integrating LLM-based orchestration into the workflow, increasing organizational velocity.
• Lead the RFC process by driving consensus across engineering and product boundaries using data, benchmarks, and clear trade-off analysis.
• Own the "Four Nines" (99.99%) uptime for services handling tens of thousands of requests per second, treating observability and developer experience as first-class products.
• Act as a sponsor for Staff and Senior engineers, raising the technical "ceiling" of the entire engineering organization.
• Architect extensible frontend platforms, including robust state management strategies, complex RBAC implementations, and performance-optimized data-fetching patterns.
• Evaluate emerging technologies (e.g., NewSQL, Edge Computing, Agentic AI) and run proof-of-concepts to modernize the tech stack without disrupting production stability.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science or equivalent industry experience.
• 12+ years of software engineering excellence, including significant time at the Staff or Principal level.
• Deep expertise in designing high-concurrency distributed systems, including complex data-consistency models, event-driven architectures (Kafka/MSK), and sub-second latency optimization.
• Experience architecting extensible frontend platforms, including state management, RBAC, and UI performance optimization.
• Proficiency in TypeScript/Node.js, with a language-agnostic approach to problem-solving.
• Established workflow for leveraging LLMs to accelerate personal and team-wide output (AI-native mindset).
• Proven ability to bridge technical possibility and business reality, using data to influence stakeholders and align engineering roadmaps with C-suite objectives.
• Track record of evaluating emerging technologies and running proof-of-concepts to modernize tech stacks.

Bonus: Experience within a large-scale, "Big Tech," or high-growth environment (e.g., FAANG, Uber, Stripe).

Pay

Base salary range for this position: $175,800.00–$219,750.00. Some roles are eligible for bonus and/or equity programs, depending on level and role.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision healthcare plans.
• New hire stipend for home office set-up.
• Generous PTO.
• Paid holidays, floating holiday, volunteer day, and recharge day.