Role overviewCarGurus is hiring an Engineering Manager to lead the Purchase team within our Consumer Engineering department. The Purchase team owns the consumer journey from the moment a shopper decides on a car to the moment the deal is done. That means delivering an experience that meets consumers where they are-whether they want agents to handle the heavy lifting on their behalf, or prefer to be guided through each step of financing, trade-in, and deal configuration themselves.
This is a pivotal leadership role at an exciting moment: we are actively transitioning our engineering practices toward AI-native and fully agentic development, and this manager will be a key driver of that transformation. You'll lead a team of talented engineers, shape the technical vision for one of our most strategically important product areas, and champion AI-forward ways of working-from integrating AI coding assistants into daily workflows to architecting intelligent, consumer-facing experiences. If you're energized by the intersection of modern AI development and high-impact consumer products, this is the role for you.
What you'll do- Lead, mentor, and grow a team of engineers, supporting their technical development and career growth while fostering a collaborative, high-performance team culture
- Partner closely with Product, UX, and Analytics to drive the Purchase roadmap from concept through technical design, implementation, testing, and measurement; actively contribute to roadmap prioritization by proposing technical investments and providing well-reasoned estimates
- Champion AI-forward engineering practices across the team-actively promoting the use of AI coding assistants, agentic workflows, and AI-driven tooling as core parts of the development process
- Lead the team's transition to fully agentic programming paradigms, setting expectations, removing blockers, and modeling the mindset shift required
- Define and drive delivery of consumer-facing AI experiences, collaborating with product and design to bring intelligent, personalized features to millions of car shoppers
- Manage project scope, estimation, and prioritization; decompose complex initiatives into small, self-contained units of work and drive their incremental delivery with a bias toward shipping and learning quickly
- Collaborate effectively across team boundaries-working with consumer, dealer, and platform engineering teams to align on dependencies, define integration requirements, and ensure the Purchase platform evolves reliably alongside the broader CarGurus ecosystem
- Roll up your sleeves and pitch in wherever you'll have the greatest impact-whether that's diving into a technical design session, helping scope an A/B test, unblocking a critical dependency, or jumping into any other area where your involvement moves the team forward
- Advocate for engineering excellence-code quality, observability, system reliability, and continuous improvement in process and tooling
- Have fun!
What you'll bring- 7+ years of relevant engineering experience, with 3+ years in an engineering management or technical lead role
- Solid backend engineering foundation-comfortable engaging deeply in architectural discussions, system design, and technical trade-offs, particularly in Java/Spring environments, distributed systems, and data layer design
- Genuine enthusiasm for AI and agentic development: you believe AI coding tools and multi-agent workflows are the future of software engineering, and you lead by example in adopting them-set a vision for AI-native development practices and guide engineers through the cultural and technical shift
- Experience delivering consumer-facing AI features or products; experience with conversational or agentic AI experiences is a strong plus
- Customer and product-focused mindset with a bias toward data-driven decisions, and a track record of shipping high-quality, user-centric features at scale
- Strong project management skills and experience with Agile methodologies; able to drive clarity and incremental progress in fast-moving, ambiguous environments
- Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and help them grow technically and professionally
- Strong communicator and collaborator who builds trust across engineering, product, and design
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
- Curious, empathetic, and plays well with others-with a commitment to continuous learning and expanding your capabilities
The displayed range represents the expected annual base salary / On-Target Earnings (OTE) for this position. On-Target Earnings (OTE) is inclusive of base salary and on-target commission earnings, which applies exclusively to sales roles.
Individual pay within this range is determined by work location and other factors such as job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.
This annual base salary forms part of a comprehensive Total Rewards Package. In addition to benefits, this role may qualify for discretionary bonuses/incentives and Restricted Stock Units (RSUs).
Position Pay Range
$186,000-$233,000 USD
