Principal Backend Engineer, Product Engineering

**Who we are
**At CarGurus (NASDAQ: CARG), our mission is to give people the power to reach their destination. We started as a small team of developers determined to bring trust and transparency to car shopping. Since then, our history of innovation and go-to-market acceleration has driven industry-leading growth. In fact, we’re the largest and fastest-growing automotive marketplace, and we’ve been profitable for over 15 years.

What we do
The market is evolving, and we are too, moving the entire automotive journey online and guiding our customers through every step. That includes everything from the sale of an old car to the financing, purchase, and delivery of a new one. Today, tens of millions of consumers visit CarGurus.com each month, and ~30,000 dealerships use our products. But they're not the only ones who love CarGurus—our employees do, too. We have a people-first culture that fosters kindness, collaboration, and innovation, and empowers our Gurus with tools to fuel their career growth. Disrupting a trillion-dollar industry requires fresh and diverse perspectives. Come join us for the ride!

Role overview

We are hiring for a backend-leaning full stack engineer in our Marketplace organization to drive our consumer-facing mobile app forward. Marketplace is the core functionality of our business and mobile app is one of our fastest growing business areas!

The Consumer Mobile App team is a nimble team that’s rebuilding and reimagining our entire user experience to help our customers find the perfect car for them, at a fair price. You will have the opportunity to realize this vision, building out a mobile-focused API to make our app fast, responsive, and flexible. You will be building net new features for our most engaged audience.

What you'll do

• Collaborate with fellow engineers, designers, product managers, and analysts to take an idea from concept to technical design to implementation to testing to measurement
• Be deeply engaged in the full development lifecycle designing, developing, testing, deploying, maintaining, monitoring and improving software
• Investigate, identify, and implement API performance enhancements
• Advocate for new technology and new methodologies
• Continuously learn and expand your capabilities

What you'll bring

• Expert in OOP (Java preferred)

• Solid experience in the data layer including SQL and GraphQL, caching strategies (we use Redis), and storage alternatives

• A strong understanding of data structures, algorithms and complexity analysis

• React experience preferred · Experience building scalable and performant APIs for front-end clients

• Experience working in cross-functional teams with front-end engineers, product, and UX · The ability to iterate and ship ideas quickly, with loose direction

• Ability to guide and mentor more junior engineers

• Experience with A/B testing and performance testing preferred

• Mobile development experience (especially in a React Native/Hybrid app) is a plus

• 8+ years of relevant work experience

Working at CarGurus
We reward our Gurus’ curiosity and passion with best-in-class benefits and compensation, including equity for all employees, both when they start and as they continue to grow with us. Our career development and corporate giving programs, as well as our employee resource groups (ERGs) and communities, help people build connections while making an impact in personally meaningful ways. A flexible hybrid model and robust time off policies encourage work-life balance and individual well-being. Thoughtful perks like daily free lunch, a new car discount, meditation and fitness apps, commuting cost coverage, and more help our people create space for what matters most in their personal and professional lives.

We welcome all
CarGurus strives to be a place to which people can bring the ultimate expression of themselves and their potential—starting with our hiring process. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, or sexual orientation. We foster an inclusive environment that values people for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. That’s why we hope you’ll apply even if you don’t check every box listed in the job description. We want to know what only you can bring to CarGurus.#LI-Hybrid