Sr. Engineer, AI & ML

8901 - Corp Office West Crk - 12800 Tuckahoe Creek Parkway, Richmond, Virginia, 23238

CarMax, the way your career should be! 

About this job

At CarMax, a Senior Engineer, AI & Machine Learning is a technologist with domain-specific expertise in personalization, recommendations, and semantic search - capable of designing and deploying intelligent systems that tailor the customer experience. As a member of the Personalization team, you will have a direct impact on the way customers discover and engage with CarMax's inventory by building machine learning solutions that power real-time recommendations, user intent understanding, and search relevance across our omni-channel platforms.

Essential Responsibilities: 

• Develop, evaluate, and deploy advanced capabilities in semantic search and recommendation systems, utilizing state-of-the-art machine learning models and information retrieval techniques 

• Articulate potential challenges of building scalable search and recommendation solutions to engineering teams and leadership, and offer creative, technically sound solutions 

• Build and maintain robust monitoring and evaluation pipelines to validate and continuously optimize the performance of search and recommendation engines 

• Assist in the growth of other engineers by sharing technical expertise, best practices, and emerging industry standards for search, ranking, and personalized recommendation systems 

• Ensure high quality standards and clean code practices by performing thorough peer reviews of code pull requests 

Minimum Qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Computer Engineering, relevant technical field, or equivalent practical experience 

• Advanced experience building machine learning-powered search or recommendation systems, including the use of vector search, semantic retrieval, and ranking models 

• 5+ year experience of software or application development

• 4+ years of experience in one or more of the following areas: machine learning/artificial intelligence, information retrieval, or systems engineering

• Excellent communication skills, able to adapt messaging to technical and non-technical audiences 

• Ability to positively influence team norms, culture, and technical vision 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Master’s degree in computer science, Computer Engineering, or a related field 

• Experience designing and deploying machine learning models for personalized recommendations, ranking algorithms, or semantic search 

• Familiarity with continuous evaluation frameworks and online/offline A/B testing for search and recommendation systems 

Software Engineering Specific Qualifications and Requirements: 

• Experience developing search and recommendation applications using cloud services (e.g., Azure AI Search, AWS Kendra, or equivalent) 

• Deep understanding of vector databases (e.g., Milvus, Azure Search Vector Index) and semantic retrieval frameworks 

• Experience with development tools and workflows for prototyping, evaluation, and deployment of information retrieval systems 

• Strong background in DevOps practices, testing frameworks, and CI/CD 

• Familiarity with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures and integrating recommendation engines with LLMs 

• Strong expertise in API development and management, including security, versioning, and observability best practices 

Work Authorization: Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Sponsorship will not be considered for this specific role.

Work Location and Arrangement: This role will be based out of the Richmond, VA Technology Innovation Center or Dallas Technology Hub in Plano, TX and have a Hybrid work arrangement.

About CarMax

CarMax disrupted the auto industry by delivering the honest, transparent, and high-integrity experience customers want and deserve. This innovative thinking around the way cars are bought and sold has helped us become the nation’s largest retailer of used cars, with over 200 locations nationwide.

Our amazing team of more than 25,000 associates work together to deliver iconic customer experiences. Along the way, we help every associate grow their career and achieve their best, at work and in their community.  We are recognized for our commitment to training and diversity and are one of the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For®.

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion:

CarMax is committed to bringing together people from different backgrounds and perspectives, providing employees with a safe, welcoming, and inclusive work environment.

CarMax is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Upon an applicant's request, CarMax will consider reasonable accommodation to complete the CarMax Job Application.