About the team and positionThe Inventory Product team owns the systems and processes that turn an acquired vehicle into sale-ready inventory as efficiently as possible, across Carvana's network of 150+ Inspection Centers (ICs). The team's scope spans reconditioning workflow and throughput, labor forecasting and utilization, vehicle quality standards, and parts management and spend - the core levers that determine how fast, how well, and how cheaply a vehicle moves through the network. Our long-term goal is to automate the reconditioning process using AI and machine learning, optimizing for speed, cost, and quality across the network.
You'll work closely with IC General Managers and their operations teams, Continuous Improvement, Quality, Procurement, Engineering, and Decision Support Sciences (DSS) to define and solve problems that affect the entire reconditioning network. This is a hands-on, floor-facing product role: you'll spend meaningful time inside Inspection Centers, watching lines run, talking to technicians and shop leadership, and using what you learn to shape the software and processes that support them. The ideal candidate has genuine empathy for the operators doing the work, is comfortable in a lean manufacturing environment, and gets energized by data-heavy problems around labor, parts spend, and quality that repeat across dozens of locations.
What you'll be doingAs an Associate Product Manager / Product Manager within Inventory, you will help develop and drive the roadmap for the tools and systems that power reconditioning across Carvana's IC network.
Inventory Product areas of focus include:
- Reconditioning Workflow & Throughput: Partner with IC leadership to improve how vehicles flow through reconditioning stations - identifying bottlenecks, reducing cycle time, and building tools that give the network better visibility into where vehicles are getting stuck.
- Labor Forecasting & Utilization: Build and refine the models and tools that forecast labor demand against production targets, and give IC leadership the visibility they need to staff effectively and manage utilization day to day.
- Vehicle Quality: Develop and improve the standards, inspection tools, and processes that ensure every vehicle meets Carvana's certified quality bar, working to reduce defects and comebacks across the network.
- Parts Management & Spend: Own tools and processes for parts ordering, availability, and spend at ICs - keeping reconditioning lines moving while controlling cost.
Responsibilities include:
- Standardizing Work Across the Network: Work across 150+ locations to identify what's working, standardize best practices, and scale successful approaches network-wide rather than solving problems one IC at a time.
- Delivering Data-Driven Insights: Source and analyze production, labor, quality, and spend data to surface meaningful insights, and communicate results and recommendations to Operations and senior leadership.
- Driving Product Ownership: Take full ownership of the products and models under your purview, translating shop-floor and operational needs into clear requirements and user stories in partnership with Engineering and DSS.
- Applying Structured Problem-Solving: Analyze existing operational processes to identify opportunities to eliminate complexity and manual effort by designing and implementing sustainable software products.
- Building AI and ML-Driven Solutions: Partner with DSS and ML Engineering to design and iterate on AI and machine learning solutions - including vehicle routing, labor demand forecasting, and automated quality detection - to drive toward fully automated reconditioning operations.
What you should know- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Industrial Engineering, Operations, or Computer Science (or other related fields).
- For Product Manager: 2+ years experience in product management. For Associate Product Manager: 0-2 years of experience, with strong internship, analytical, or operational experience considered.
- Comfort operating in - and regularly visiting - a lean manufacturing / reconditioning environment; willingness to travel to Inspection Centers across the network.
- Strong project management skills, and the ability to work cross-functional on complex product areas, managing dependencies.
- Openness to feedback from all people and parts of the company. A positive outlook, humility, and a healthy sense of humor. Read this again if necessary!
- Intuitive problem-solving. Understand and think through causal relationships and ripple effects. Confidence in tackling emerging and complex problems.
- Product sensibility. A student of products with sharp intuition about operators and user experience.
- Excellence in communication. Ability to collaborate and speak the language of our Operational, Product, Engineering, and Executive teams.
- Analytical thinking. Capable of the full scope of data-driven decision-making: diving deep to understand the nuances of individual data points, defining illuminating summary statistics and visualizations, crafting simple yet accurate narratives, and employing all of the foregoing to improve our product and business.
- An AI-first approach to product work, with hands-on experience using AI tools for research, analysis, prototyping, and day-to-day productivity.
It would be great if you also have:- Experience in lean manufacturing, industrial engineering, or high-throughput physical operations (automotive, logistics, warehousing).
- Familiarity with Snowflake, Sigma, Looker, or Tableau for independent data exploration.
- Background in parts procurement, supply chain systems, or inventory management.
- Hands-on experience building or iterating on AI-driven or ML-informed products.
What we'll offer in return- Full-Time position with a competitive salary and Carvana stock compensation.
- Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits.
- 401K with company match.
- A multitude of perks including student loan payments, discounts on vehicles, benefits for your pets, and much more.
- A great wellness program to keep you healthy and happy both physically and mentally.
- Access to opportunities to expand your skill set and share your knowledge with others across the organization.
- A company culture focused on high performance and bar-raising, with vast opportunity to learn and grow.
Other requirementsTo be able to do your job at Carvana, there are some basic requirements we want to share with you.
- Must be able to read, write, speak and understand English.
