Software Engineer

About the role

The Developer IV leads technical modernization efforts across Wheels' application landscape, with a mandate to evolve legacy systems toward a modern, AI-enabled architecture. This role owns the technical roadmap that connects day-to-day support of mission-critical legacy applications with the organization's broader goal of becoming AI-first, identifying where AI tooling, modern integration patterns, and cloud-ready design can reduce technical debt, accelerate delivery, and improve system resilience.

The role blends hands-on technical leadership of the legacy systems programming team with a forward-looking architecture mandate: evaluating, piloting, and scaling AI-assisted development practices, and building the case for, and executing against, a modernized technology stack.

Responsibilities

• Technical & Team Leadership: Serve as technical lead for the legacy systems programming team, guiding, reviewing, and directing technical work to ensure business needs and modernization goals are met; act as technical team leader on projects; instruct, coach, and mentor team members on AI-assisted development tools and modern engineering practices; participate in scrum activities with Web Development and broader Engineering teams to align legacy and modern workstreams.
• Architecture Evolution & AI-First Modernization: Own and evolve the technical roadmap for migrating legacy systems functionality toward modern, API-first, cloud-ready architecture; partner with Enterprise Architecture and Engineering leadership to define target-state architecture and sequence modernization work into deliverable, low-risk increments; evaluate, pilot, and scale AI-enabled development tooling (e.g., AI coding assistants, automated code comprehension and refactoring, AI-assisted testing and documentation); identify opportunities to apply AI/ML within business applications (e.g., intelligent automation, anomaly detection, decision support); champion replacement of point-to-point integrations with standardized, event-driven, and API-based integration patterns; define, track, and report modernization KPIs (e.g., deployment frequency, change failure rate, legacy footprint reduction, technical debt trend); ensure all AI tooling and automation adopted by the team complies with Wheels' data governance, security, and compliance standards.
• Application Development & Support: Work with business users to understand requirements, issues, and business processes, translating them into sound technical designs; develop, test, maintain, and support business application programs while identifying modernization opportunities; perform quality assurance testing for created or modified programs and affected applications; analyze production applications to isolate problems, determine more efficient methods, and surface modernization candidates; research and implement problem resolutions; maintain current knowledge of languages, coding methods, and emerging AI-assisted development practices; recommend enhancements to departmental standards.
• Other Duties: Document technical requirements and create technical designs; ensure software quality meets Wheels' standards; provide project and system documentation per department standards; present modernization progress, risks, and recommendations to stakeholders; respond to on-call emergencies pertaining to recent application/module enhancements.

Leadership Responsibilities

This position carries technical leadership responsibility for the legacy systems programming team and architecture-level influence over Wheels' legacy-to-modern application roadmap. The role is expected to shape how AI-assisted development is adopted across the broader Engineering organization.

Requirements

• BS/BA in Computer Science, Business Information Systems, or Business Administration with a computer-related minor, or commensurate professional experience.
• Minimum 10 years' experience in a professional environment with significant emphasis on application development and data management.
• Strong programming skills in legacy systems languages, with proven ability to support and modernize mission-critical legacy systems.
• Demonstrated experience with, or strong aptitude for, modern architecture patterns (APIs, microservices, event-driven integration) and AI-assisted development tooling.
• Excellent communication (verbal, written) and project management skills, with a strong analytical thought process and an aptitude to learn quickly.

Skills

• Customer-focused collaboration.
• Problem-solving and resourcefulness.
• Independent, organized, and structured work style with thoroughness and accuracy.
• Architectural thinking balancing near-term delivery and long-term technical debt.
• Fluency with AI-assisted development tools and evidence-based technology evaluation.
• Clear communication of technical strategy and trade-offs to technical and business stakeholders.
• Cross-cultural capability and commitment to global perspective and organizational goals.
• Effective time management for self and team.

Benefits

Wheels offers a robust, market-leading benefits package designed to support employee and family well-being. Please visit the provided overview for details on available benefits.

Pay

The base salary range for this position is $115,900–$162,200. This position is eligible to participate in the annual incentive plan based on company and individual performance. Compensation is determined by job function, level, geographic location, and candidate experience, education, certifications, skill level, and expertise.

Schedule

This is a full-time position, Monday through Friday, with minimal (