Lead Software Engineer

External

Cox Automotive · Austin, TX

ContractRemoteToday

AccessibilityAngularCachingData ModelingDocumentationGraphQL

Cover Letter Connect

Prepare for this interview

Elite

AI-generated questions, company research, and talking points tailored to this role

About the role

We are looking for a Lead Software Engineer to own the technical direction of a full-stack product team. You will operate across the entire stack - from the component library and client-side state management layer through APIs, services, and data stores - making sure the pieces fit together into a cohesive, performant, and maintainable product. You'll pair deep hands-on coding with the judgment to decide what to build, how to build it, and when to push back. This is a senior technical leadership role. You will set architectural direction, raise the quality bar through code review and design guidance, mentor engineers at every level, and partner closely with Product and Design to turn ambiguous problems into shipped software. You lead by building trust - through the quality of your technical decisions, the clarity of your communication, and your commitment to the team's growth.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

Define and drive the full-stack technical roadmap in partnership with Product and Design, balancing feature velocity with platform health and technical debt reduction.

Establish and evolve architectural standards, coding conventions, and design patterns across frontend and backend systems.

Lead design reviews and RFC processes for significant features and system changes; serve as the final technical decision-maker for the team.

Own cross-cutting concerns - API contract design, authentication/authorization flows, performance budgets, accessibility standards, and data modeling strategy.

Represent the team in cross-functional architecture forums; communicate technical trade-offs, risks, and timelines to engineering leadership and non-technical stakeholders.

Frontend Engineering

Architect and build modern, responsive user interfaces using React (or equivalent framework) with a focus on performance, accessibility, and developer ergonomics.

Define and maintain the component library and design system implementation, ensuring consistency between design specs and shipped UI.

Drive frontend performance - bundle optimization, code splitting, lazy loading, caching strategies, and Core Web Vitals improvement.

Establish frontend testing strategy including unit, integration, visual regression, and end-to-end tests.

Champion accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA) and internationalization as first-class engineering concerns, not afterthoughts.

Backend Engineering

Design, build, and scale RESTful and/or GraphQL APIs that serve the product's frontend, mobile clients, and third-party integrations.

Architect backend services for reliability, horizontal scalability, and operational clarity - clean domain boundaries, idempotent operations, graceful degradation, and structured logging.

Own data modeling and database design (relational and/or NoSQL); optimize query performance, indexing strategies, and migration workflows.

Implement and enforce authentication, authorization, and data-privacy patterns across the service layer.

Design event-driven architectures and async processing pipelines where appropriate (message queues, pub/sub, background workers).

Team Development & Culture

Mentor and coach SE1-SE3 engineers through code reviews, pairing sessions, design guidance, and career development conversations.

Foster a culture of quality - meaningful code review, automated testing, continuous integration, and iterative delivery.

Contribute to hiring - define technical interview standards, conduct interviews, and calibrate the hiring bar for the team.

Identify skill gaps and create learning paths, documentation, and internal tech talks to elevate the team's capabilities across the stack.

Partner with Product and Design from discovery through delivery, providing early technical input that shapes what's feasible and what's wise.

What You Bring

Required

7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 3 years working across the full stack and at least 2 years in a technical leadership capacity.

Expert-level proficiency in a modern frontend framework (React, Vue, or Angular) including state management, routing, build tooling, and performance optimization.

Expert-

Lead Software Engineer

About the role

Responsibilities

Benefits

Additional Information

Your Match

Company Intel

What employees say

Interested in this role?