Lead Sr. Software Engineer - Front End

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.

Your role:

If you’re an experienced Lead Senior Software Engineer - Front End, looking for a 100% remote team (onsite interviews may be required), you’ve come to the right place!

Cars.com helps tens of millions of people like you and me find their perfect car match each year. We are the #1 automotive marketplace brand, with our audience spanning our desktop & mobile responsive website, our 4.7 star rated Android app, and our 4.8 star rated iOS app.

We thrive on openness, innovation, collaboration, and the freedom to try bold software engineering ideas. At our core, we’re a team of builders, problem-solvers, and lifelong learners—focused on making meaningful impact at scale. If this aligns with you, let's explore!

Our mission on the Marketplace Engineering team is to build a trusted marketplace that facilitates a simple, fun, and fast experience for car buyers and sellers. By joining our team you will be in the driver’s seat as we build novel Front End solutions that support frictionless experiences for our users throughout the automotive ecosystem, and across the Cars.com website (and MobileApp experiences)

We’re looking for a Front End Lead Senior Software Engineer with 7+ years of front end development experience to join our growing organization. This role has a high degree of autonomy and ambiguity: You will be working with junior and senior engineers within your team and throughout engineering, as well as cross functional stakeholders in product, design, and data to take projects from idea to done.

This means owning both product and engineering driven projects, including collaborating through the discovery process to arrive at a technical solution, working to execute upon that solution, and shipping that solution to millions of users. You’ll work closely with our backend, iOS, and Android teams in order to deliver simultaneously across all of our user-facing channels, first defining our API contracts, and then working in parallel with your counterparts to deliver high-quality experiences to millions.

As one of our technical Front End leader, you’ll guide technical decisions and be instrumental in empowering more junior team members in reaching their personal career goals through your mentorship.

Your sphere of influence doesn’t end there. Passionate and opinionated about things like new and emerging technologies, organizational theory, process, and execution? You’ll be able to help define the what and the how around engineering for our organization.

In short, you’ll be a leader and a force multiplier, and with that, you’ll shape how millions of people shop for their next car on Cars.com.

Our stack: 

• JavaScript/TypeScript, Lit-based Web Components, Swift, SwiftUI, Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, GraphQL, Elixir + Phoenix, CircleCI, GitHub

You bring: 

• 7+ years of front end software engineering experience, including a deep knowledge of JavaScript (and TypeScript), Web Components, and having working familiarity with various web frameworks (React, Vue, Svelte, etc).

• Expert-level understanding of browser fundamentals: HTML, CSS (Flexbox, Grid), DOM, event lifecycle, rendering, and performance tuning.

• Strong experience using browser dev tools across Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc. for layout debugging, JS tracing, and performance profiling.

• Demonstrated experience architecting and maintaining component-based design systems with support for theming, responsive behavior, and accessibility.

• Passion for user experience, developer ergonomics, and performance measurement (including Core Web Vitals).

• Solid understanding of working with back-end technologies and architectural patterns.

• Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives, influence others, and align multiple teams around technical direction.

Plusses, but not requirements: 

• Experience building production applications using a Server Driven UI (SDUI) approach to build across web and mobile clients using GraphQL.

• Experience with Elixir and the Phoenix framework. Candidates without Elixir experience but with a strong background in equivalent technology stacks (e.g., Ruby on Rails) who are willing to learn new technologies are encouraged to apply.

Our Comprehensive Benefits Package includes:

• Medical, Dental & Vision Healthcare Plans
• New Hire Stipend for Home Office Set-Up
• 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.