Principal Data Engineer

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 Accu-Trade we are seeking a Principal Data Engineering leader for our expanding Commerce Platform.

We’re looking for a highly-motivated and enthusiastic Principal Data Engineer who will lead by example and be a force multiplier to other engineers building and supporting our critical data systems and services. This role is pivotal to leading a key part of the broader Platform strategy. Success in this role requires exceptional development, communication, and project management skills. You should have hands-on deep data engineering experience, and a strong belief in transparency and accountability. You have a large portfolio of previous experience delivering scalable data solutions in AWS. Ownership is a key characteristic you inspire your teams to ingrain in their culture.

Responsibilities

• Understand the business purpose of Data and become an expert capable of making recommendations and decisions that represent both the business intent and the technical need
• Develop technical plans to match the strategic vision of the organization and larger company
• Build and deliver Data solutions - from POCs to customer facing services, ensure teams are working on the right priorities and share development responsibilities where needed
• Lead architecture reviews, design recommendations, data architecture standards, proof of concepts, or domain specific solutions
• Analyze and optimize - Identify gaps and lead teams through optimization processes
• Author and share excellent documentation across the technology organization
• Lead independent efforts and with minimal oversight, prioritizing on the fly, and persisting the expected communication and transparency needed when priorities change
• Work closely with Management and Stakeholders bringing transparency to your work and outcomes
• R&D into modern Data techniques and tools evaluating for relevance and value
• Solicit requirements from collaborators and foster excellent communication with stakeholders
• Mentor engineers to help upskill and build their portfolio of work
• Lead by example to establish a culture of technical expertise and operational accountability
• Lead/sponsor engineering culture around best practice
• Establish and enforce training standards and performance expectations for individual contributors
• First to the fire - leverage your deep troubleshooting knowledge and skills to improve quality continuously
• On-call escalation participation as needed
• Leading incident postmortem exercises to identify root causes and help teams prioritize preventative measures
• Be an ambassador of Cars.com's Core Values:
• Challenge & Collaborate; Start with the Consumer; Be Bold; Build Relationships, Deliver Results; Focus on the Outcome; Stay Open

Minimum Qualifications

• Master's Degree in computer science, data science, or related degree or equivalent practical experience
• 12+ years of technical experience
• Extensive experience and skills with data modeling, warehousing and building ETL pipelines
• Experience designing & developing complex, real-time applications at enterprise scale; specifically Python and/or Scala
• Extensive experience with one or more query language (e.g., SQL, PL/SQL, HiveQL, SparkSQL)
• Demonstrated previous professional experience with tools and platforms like Spark Streaming, EMR, Kafka
• Demonstrated previous professional experience developing modern data applications in the cloud, specifically AWS (RedShift, API-Gateway, S3, MSK)
• Experience working with and developing REST API services
• Extensive experience in at least one programming language commonly used within Data Engineering, such as Python, Scala, or Java.
• Solid understanding of Spark and ability to write, debug, and optimize Spark code in Python
• Previous experience with any of ETL schedulers such as Airflow or similar frameworks.
• Extensive experience with source code management systems Github
• Experience developing CI/CD pipelines with tools such as Jenkins, CircleCI, or CodeDeploy
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills
• Experience documenting standards and best practices for teams of fellow engineers
• Excellent troubleshooting and debugging skills
• Experienced implementing security best practices
• Extensive experience using modern monitoring tools (Cloudwatch, DataDog, etc) and establishing metrics, monitoring, alarming, and dashboards
• Extensive experience managing change management practices, policies, and procedures
• Experience working in a software delivery process such as Agile
• Ability and willingness to manage ambiguity i.e., help shape solutions and prioritize deliverables to align with the Company’s vision

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing Spark streaming jobs
• Experience working with and managing Kafka
• Experience working with Google Analytics
• Strong track record of delivering results and are able to effectively prioritize and manage multiple competing priorities with various business stakeholders
• Experience designing and setting operational metrics and reporting on said metrics

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.