Software Engineer - PHP

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,our reputation-based digital wholesale auction marketplace, Dealerclub,or our newCars 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 weRise 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 beOpen to All, encouraging open-minded communication because we know diverse thinking yields better outcomes. But critical to our success isCaring to ChallengeandTaking 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 ReportBest 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.

[THIS IS A REMOTE ROLE - MAY REQUIRE ONSITE INTERVIEWS]

ABOUT THE ROLE -

Join us in shaping the future of Automotive Commerce. Our Transactional Platform Team is on a transformative journey, building innovative services that will redefine the way we deliver value as Cars Commerce is unifying the car-buying journey on a single, data-driven platform.

Our Transactional Platform is the powerhouse behind the systems that keep our brands running — from payments and credit applications to incentives management and other key capabilities that enable seamless transactions across our entire portfolio. That includes industry-leading names like Cars.com, Dealer Inspire, AccuTrade, and our Media Network.

As a Software Engineer on our Incentives/Credit team, you’ll be part of an autonomous, high-impact group that builds and scales high-throughput, API-first services using Node.js and PHP, deployed on AWS EKS/ECS. These services fuel our most critical financial systems — powering everything from CreditIQ (our credit application platform) to our incentives management tools, which collectively support millions of car-buying transactions each year.

This is an incredible opportunity to make a real impact. You’ll collaborate closely with Product leadership to turn bold business goals into measurable, incremental outcomes. You’ll drive best-in-class engineering practices around observability, security, and reliability, ensuring your services perform flawlessly in production. As you grow in the role, you’ll have the chance to shape platform architecture, lead cross-domain integrations that open new revenue streams, and influence the future technical direction of the Transactional Platform.

Join us and build the technology that’s redefining how the automotive industry transacts!

ABOUT YOU

You are a motivated software engineer who thrives in building scalable and reliable systems. You have a solid foundation in designing and developing services that can handle high traffic volumes while ensuring performance, security, and maintainability. You understand software architecture and engineering best practices and are comfortable following and contributing to technical decisions that balance speed, quality, and long-term stability.

You understand the importance of testing, observability, and CI/CD pipelines in delivering reliable systems. You have experience working with modern web technologies and are eager to learn containerization and orchestration patterns to optimize deployment, scalability, and resilience.

Above all, you're passionate about creating financial technology capabilities that empower consumers to make confident car buying decisions and help dealers succeed in a competitive marketplace.

Why You'll Be Excited About This Role:

This opportunity enables you to...

• Develop Scalable and Observable Systems: Collaborate with other engineers to develop high-performance services that meet service level objectives (SLOs) and scale to support growing business needs.

• Own Production Systems:Own the quality and maintenance of business-critical systems you and your team builds. Participate in on-call rotations to quickly resolve incidents and postmortems to drive continuous improvement in system reliability.

• Collaborate Cross-Functionally:Partner with product managers, engineering teams, and infrastructure teams to fulfill technical requirements and build scalable, maintainable systems that align with business goals and product roadmaps.

• Drive Documentation and Knowledge Sharing: Ensure comprehensive documentation of API designs, system architectures, and operational procedures to enable internal teams and external customers to easily build and integrate with the APIs in a self-service manner.

We’re Excited About You Because…

• You will have Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience

• You have 2 to 5+ years of PHP experience in development of web services and APIs

• You have Strong experience building backend services with Node.js and JavaScript/TypeScript

• You have Hands-on experience with Node.js frameworks for API development (Express, Fastify, NestJS, or similar)

• You have experience building RESTful APIs and understanding of API design principles

• You have experience with SQL and demonstrated proficiency in database design fundamentals

• You have proven track record of successfully delivering high-quality software

• Your have strong collaboration, communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively across cross-functional teams

• You have understanding of secure software development practices

• You have solid understanding of build processes and test automation

• You are willingness to participate in an on-call rotation, providing prompt incident resolution and conducting postmortems to improve system reliability

Preferred

• Experience with PHP and web frameworks like Laravel or Symfony

• Experience with financial services, e-commerce, or high-transaction systems

• Familiarity with containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes)

• Experience with event-driven architectures and message queuing systems

• Knowledge of modern API patterns and RESTful best practices

• Experience with Node.js testing frameworks (Jest, Mocha, etc.)

• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code

• Understanding of platform architecture and service-oriented design

• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure)

• Understanding of Agile methodologies and concepts

Join us and build the technology that’s redefining how the automotive industry transacts!

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!

For US-based Positions: Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States. Please note that we are unable to sponsor employment visas at this time.

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.