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Practising for the listing Engineering Manager, DevX Platform as a Service. Its requirements are filled in below. When you have an answer you like, paste it with your CV in Career Mirror to see which of the job's skills it shows.

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Engineering Manager, DevX Platform as a Service
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!

CarGurus is hiring an Engineering Manager to lead DevX PaaS, a sub-team within Developer Experience in Engineering Platform. DevX PaaS builds and operates CarGurus' Kubernetes-based developer platform, enabling product teams to ship quickly, reliably, and at scale—partnering across engineering to remove friction, modernize our stack, and accelerate time-to-market.

You'll lead a team of talented engineers, own the team's strategy and operations end to end, set the technical direction for our most important platform work, and champion AI-first ways of working.

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.

• Own team strategy for DevX PaaS: translate the Engineering Platform functional plan into a team-level roadmap, own performance management and hiring/talent decisions, and represent PaaS in Engineering Platform planning and prioritization forums.

• Partner closely with Engineering Platform leadership and downstream product teams to drive the PaaS roadmap from concept through technical design, implementation, and measurement

• Champion AI-forward engineering practices across the team — actively promoting agentic automation of recurring maintenance and piloting a more scalable, AI-assisted support model for developer questions

• Set the technical direction for the Kubernetes platform on AWS EKS and the continued evolution of our proprietary Mach5 platform with AWS-native capabilities.

• Guide platform modernization to simplify developer configuration and reduce operational toil.

• Manage project scope, estimation, and prioritization for the team's quarterly portfolio — balancing a heavy load of non-discretionary platform work (upgrades, migrations, maintenance, on-call) against modernization and strategic initiatives.

• Collaborate effectively across team boundaries — working with Engineering Platform and product teams to align on dependencies, frame problems, and make sure downstream teams understand impacts and timelines.

• Advocate for engineering excellence — reliability, security, and developer ergonomics — and represent PaaS in Engineering Platform-level forums (all-hands, capacity planning, leads meetings), translating technical trade-offs into clear, audience-appropriate language for both engineers and executive stakeholders.

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 Kubernetes/EKS environments, distributed systems, controller/operator patterns.

• Infrastructure as Code experience (Terraform, Helm, ArgoCD, GitHub-based workflows) and CI/CD automation.

• An observability and SRE mindset: metrics, tracing, logging, SLOs, incident response, and post-incident learning.

• Genuine enthusiasm for AI and agentic development: you believe AI-driven automation is the future of platform engineering, and you lead by example — setting a vision for AI-assisted maintenance and support and guiding engineers through the cultural and technical shift.

• A developer/customer-focused mindset with a bias toward data-driven decisions, and a track record of building paved roads that hundreds of engineers rely on.

• 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, plus experience with hiring, performance management, and talent development.

• A strong communicator and collaborator who builds trust across engineering and business stakeholders, and can tailor your message to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• 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
$154,000 — $193,000 USD

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.

CarGurus may require in-person interviews as part of our hiring process, particularly for positions based in our Boston and Dublin offices. Candidates selected for an in-person interview will be notified in advance. Please be aware that travel expenses are the responsibility of the candidate.

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 also encourage you to tell your recruiter if you require accommodations to participate in our hiring process due to a disability so we can provide the appropriate support. We want to know what only you can bring to CarGurus. #LI-Hybrid

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Requirements found

Marketing Sales Project Management Agile Training

What this posting asks for

Level: Manager — The title says "Manager".

Main responsibilities

Lead, mentor, and grow a team of engineers supporting their technical development and career growth while fostering a collaborative, high-performance team cu…
Own team strategy for DevX PaaS: translate the Engineering Platform functional plan into a team-level roadmap, own performance management and hiring/talent d…
Partner closely with Engineering Platform leadership and downstream product teams to drive the PaaS roadmap from concept through technical design, implementa…
Champion AI-forward engineering practices across the team — actively promoting agentic automation of recurring maintenance and piloting a more scalable, AI-a…
Set the technical direction for the Kubernetes platform on AWS EKS and the continued evolution of our proprietary Mach5 platform with AWS-native capabilities.
Guide platform modernization to simplify developer configuration and reduce operational toil.
Manage project scope, estimation, and prioritization for the team's quarterly portfolio — balancing a heavy load of non-discretionary platform work (upgrades…
Collaborate effectively across team boundaries — working with Engineering Platform and product teams to align on dependencies, frame problems, and make sure …
Advocate for engineering excellence — reliability, security, and developer ergonomics — and represent PaaS in Engineering Platform-level forums (all-hands, c…

Competencies an interviewer will look for

Technical skill Core
In the posting: “CarGurus is hiring an Engineering Manager to lead DevX PaaS, a sub-team within Developer Experience in Engineering Platform.” · “DevX PaaS builds and operates CarGurus' Kubernetes-based developer platform, enabling product teams to ship quickly, reliably, and at scale—partnering across…” · “Own team strategy for DevX PaaS: translate the Engineering Platform functional plan into a team-level roadmap, own performance management and hiring/talent d…”
Show it by: Names the tools, languages or systems used and how; Explains a technical choice and its trade-off.
Teamwork and collaboration Core
In the posting: “We have a people-first culture that fosters kindness, collaboration, and innovation, and empowers our Gurus with tools to fuel their career growth.” · “Lead, mentor, and grow a team of engineers supporting their technical development and career growth while fostering a collaborative, high-performance team cu…” · “Collaborate effectively across team boundaries — working with Engineering Platform and product teams to align on dependencies, frame problems, and make sure …”
Show it by: Says what they did inside a team, not only what 'we' did; Shows how a disagreement was handled.
Leadership and mentoring Core
In the posting: “You'll lead a team of talented engineers, own the team's strategy and operations end to end, set the technical direction for our most important platform work…” · “Lead, mentor, and grow a team of engineers supporting their technical development and career growth while fostering a collaborative, high-performance team cu…” · “Partner closely with Engineering Platform leadership and downstream product teams to drive the PaaS roadmap from concept through technical design, implementa…”
Show it by: Describes setting direction or a standard others followed; Names someone they coached and what changed for them.
Planning and organisation Core
In the posting: “Own team strategy for DevX PaaS: translate the Engineering Platform functional plan into a team-level roadmap, own performance management and hiring/talent d…” · “Manage project scope, estimation, and prioritization for the team's quarterly portfolio — balancing a heavy load of non-discretionary platform work (upgrades…” · “Advocate for engineering excellence — reliability, security, and developer ergonomics — and represent PaaS in Engineering Platform-level forums (all-hands, c…”
Show it by: Shows how priorities were set when everything was urgent; Mentions deadlines met and how.
Adaptability and learning Core
In the posting: “able to drive clarity and incremental progress in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.” · “Curious, empathetic, and plays well with others — with a commitment to continuous learning and expanding your capabilities.” · “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…”
Show it by: Describes learning something new quickly and using it; Shows a change of plan and how they adjusted.
Customer focus Core
In the posting: “The market is evolving, and we are too, moving the entire automotive journey online and guiding our customers through every step.” · “A developer/customer-focused mindset with a bias toward data-driven decisions, and a track record of building paved roads that hundreds of engineers rely on.”
Show it by: Puts the customer's need in their own words; Shows a result for the customer, not only for the company.
Data and analysis Core
In the posting: “An observability and SRE mindset: metrics, tracing, logging, SLOs, incident response, and post-incident learning.” · “A developer/customer-focused mindset with a bias toward data-driven decisions, and a track record of building paved roads that hundreds of engineers rely on.”
Show it by: Uses a number to describe the situation or the result; Explains what the data showed and what was done with it.
Stakeholder management Core
In the posting: “Advocate for engineering excellence — reliability, security, and developer ergonomics — and represent PaaS in Engineering Platform-level forums (all-hands, c…” · “A strong communicator and collaborator who builds trust across engineering and business stakeholders, and can tailor your message to both technical and non-t…”
Show it by: Shows how they aligned people with different goals; Explains how they handled a 'no' from someone senior.
Communication Supporting
In the posting: “A strong communicator and collaborator who builds trust across engineering and business stakeholders, and can tailor your message to both technical and non-t…”
Show it by: Adapts the message to the listener; Gives an example of explaining something clearly in writing or speech.
Ownership and accountability Supporting
In the posting: “You'll lead a team of talented engineers, own the team's strategy and operations end to end, set the technical direction for our most important platform work…”
Show it by: Takes a task from start to finish without being chased; Owns a mistake and what was changed after it.

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Practice questions

Tell me about yourself. Dedicated step-by-step practice.
If an interviewer asks something improper How to respond to questions about age, family, origin or health.
Built from this posting (8):
Walk me through a piece of work where you used your strongest technical skill. What exactly did you do? From this posting
Describe a time you worked with another team to deliver something. What was your part? From this posting
Tell me about a time you helped someone on your team get better at their work. From this posting
You have three urgent tasks due today and time to finish only two. How do you decide? From this posting
How have you used marketing in your work? Walk me through one real example. From this posting
Tell me about a problem you solved using sales. From this posting
Tell me about a time you had to explain something complex to someone outside your field. From this posting
Tell me about a task you took from start to finish without anyone asking you to. From this posting
This posting reads as Software engineering: its questions come first.
Tell me about the hardest bug you have tracked down. How did you find the cause? Software engineering
Describe a technical design decision you made and the trade-off behind it. Software engineering
Tell me about a time you disagreed with a teammate in a code review. Software engineering
Production is down and you are the first engineer to notice. What do you do in the first 30 minutes? Software engineering
How do you decide what to test before you ship a change? Software engineering
Walk me through a feature you built from start to finish. What tools and languages did you use? Software engineering
Tell me about a time you helped a less experienced engineer get unstuck. Software engineering
Your estimate for a feature turns out to be badly wrong halfway through. What do you do? Software engineering
Tell me about a sale or agreement you are proud of.
Describe a time you handled an upset customer or colleague.
Tell me about a time you had several deadlines at once. How did you decide what to do first?
Give an example of a mistake you caught before it caused a problem.
Tell me about a time you taught someone how to do something.
Describe a time you took the lead without being asked.
Tell me about a time you had to explain something complicated in simple terms.
Describe a process you improved.
Do you have any questions for us?
Why do you want to work here?
Why is there a gap in your employment? Difficult question
Why did you leave your last job? Difficult question
Why are you changing careers? Difficult question
What is your greatest weakness? Difficult question
What are your salary expectations? Difficult question
You seem overqualified for this role. Why do you want it? Difficult question
Improper-question practice: How old are you? / Do you have children? / Where are you from originally?
A customer is angry about a delay you did not cause. What do you do?
How do you keep track of many open customer requests?
Tell me about a time you could not give a customer what they wanted.
You find that the inventory count does not match the system. What do you do?
Tell me about a time a shipment or delivery went wrong.
How do you make sure safety rules are followed on a busy shift?
Two managers ask you to book the same room at the same time. What do you do?
How have you used spreadsheets in your work?
Tell me about a time you had to enter or check a lot of data accurately.
A prospect says your price is too high. How do you respond?
How do you keep your pipeline organised?
Tell me about a technical problem you solved on your own.
You find a bug right before a release. What do you do?
Walk me through how you would check whether a report's numbers are right.