Director of Software Engineering

Join our team and be part of something truly transformational!

We are different.

Under the name of CareGard Warranty Services, Automotive Financial Group (AFG) was founded in 1994. Within the past 30 years, AFG has become a leader in vehicle service contracts and protection products. Through partnerships with car dealerships, finance companies, and automotive manufacturers (OEM), CareGard has redefined the standards of service in the automotive industry. Driven by a profound mission to enhance the automotive landscape, CareGard has tirelessly worked towards nurturing talent and fostering a culture rooted in values of trust and reliability. Today, it stands as a titan among extended warranty providers, celebrated for its exceptional Google ratings and unwavering commitment to excellence.

Excellence is in our DNA.

At CareGard, we are always looking for the best talent on the planet. Our people have an ownership mentality in everything we do. We exude initiative, accountability, and an unyielding pursuit of excellence. Our culture is built on integrity, innovation, and passion. Together, these values create an atmosphere that allows us to surpass customer expectations and cultivate deep-seated relationships built on trust. As we chart our course through new and existing growth opportunities, we invite those who dare to dream, who are dedicated to becoming the finest versions of themselves, and who approach challenges with a visionary problem-solving mindset to grow with us.

Once in a Lifetime Opportunity.

AFG is growing rapidly, and we are looking for a Director of Software Engineering who can lead our software development strategy and drive the delivery of high-quality, scalable applications and services. This is a role for a leader who sees beyond daily execution, understands how technology intersects with business objectives, and builds systems and teams that truly make an impact.

Summary:

The Director of Software Engineering directs and executes AFG’s software development strategy, and is accountable for the delivery of high-quality, scalable applications and services. The role is responsible for leading, mentoring, and developing a team of engineers, fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement. This role drives strategic planning and roadmap development, aligning engineering initiatives with AFG’s business objectives and long-term growth. While primarily focused on leadership and strategy, the role requires hands-on technical involvement when evaluating architecture decisions, resolving complex technical challenges, or establishing engineering standards and best practices. The Director of Software Engineering plans, prioritizes, and leads cross-functional development initiatives, ensuring consistent delivery while maintaining operational excellence within a SOC2 security framework.

Responsibilities:

• Partner closely with other organizations in the company on priorities and tradeoffs
• Lead architecture and design decisions; stay hands-on in critical or complex areas
• Own delivery of product and platform commitments across teams
• Manage and develop technical leads and managers who also maintain IC responsibilities
• Set and enforce standards for code quality, testing, security, and reliability
• Oversee CI/CD, releases, QA practices, and operational readiness
• Act as the escalation point for technical and delivery issues
• Drive incident response, postmortems, and continuous improvement
• Stay abreast of industry trends and best practices – research, test, and execute new techniques which could improve software deployment strategies
• Establish and enforce engineering standards for code quality, monitoring and alerting, testing, security, and reliability

Skills & Qualifications:

• Experience leading engineers in a hands-on leadership role
• Strong software engineering background with ability to guide architecture and design decisions
• Ability to balance hands-on technical work with people leadership and delivery ownership
• Experience overseeing DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, and release management
• Working knowledge of QA practices, test automation, and quality standards
• Strong understanding of system reliability, scalability, and operational best practices
• Experience owning production systems and leading incident response and postmortems
• Ability to translate business and product goals into executable engineering plans
• Strong communication skills and ability to work cross-functionally
• Experience hiring, coaching, and developing high-performing engineers
• Must be capable of developing a good rapport with other people in AFG, inspiring trust and confidence from managers, peers, and subordinates
• Must be a self-motived, results-oriented individual capable of multi-tasking, meeting deadlines, managing uncertainty, and working in a highly collaborative environment
• Experience with containerization and orchestration using products like AWS ECS
• Experience working with observability stacks, such as Grafana or ELK
• 1+ years of DevOps specific roles focusing on cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, and automation
• 7+ years of experience software engineering
• Hands-on experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP