Principal Software Engineer, Data Platform

Credit Acceptance is proud to be an award-winning company with local and national workplace recognition in multiple categories! Our world-class culture is shaped by dedicated Team Members who share a drive to succeed as professionals and together as a company. A great product, amazing people and our stable financial history have made us one of the largest used car finance companies nationally.

Our Engineering and Analytics Team Members utilize the latest technology to develop, monitor, and maintain complex practices that help optimize our success.  Our Team Members value being challenged, are encouraged to express their ideas, and have the flexibility to enjoy work life balance.  We build intrinsic value by partnering with all functions of our business to support their success and make strategic business decisions.  We focus on professional development and continuous improvement while enjoying a casual work environment and Great Place to Work culture!

We're seeking a Principal Software Engineer to provide technical and architectural leadership within the data engineering organization. In this role, you'll take a hands on approach in championing technology and architecture decisions at the ecosystem level, while role modeling how engineers should think and work. As a principal engineer, you'll be responsible for leading the technical vision, architecture, and implementation strategy across the data ecosystem, collaborating both within the data team and outside to ensure successful deliveries in production, representing the data team in various technical forums across engineering to apply a data lens at the ecosystem level. The ideal candidate brings 15+ years of engineering experience with significant depth in data technology, distributed systems, and cloud. You'll serve as both a hands-on technical leader and a strategic advisor, helping to establish robust, scalable foundations that enable innovation across the organization.

Outcomes and Activities:

• This position will work from home; occasional planned travel to an assigned Southfield, Michigan office location may be required.  However, this position is permitted to work at a Southfield, Michigan office location if requested by the team member.
• Provide technical thought leadership that connects and aligns business strategy with success
• Champion key technology and architecture decision across the data portfolio for current and future success
• Hands on and role model how engineers should think and work, foster a strong engineering culture and discipline including “show and tell”
• Collaborate both with the data team and cross engineering on technology and architecture strategy and decision
• Exemplify technical innovation and contribute to critical system design, implementation and operation success
• Formulate technology and architecture decision frameworks that embed engineering disciplines
• Become an expert in the business process domain to better support the business and align technologies with the business outcomes
• Work with the engineering leadership team to develop and execute on the company’s technical and business strategy
• Conduct impact analysis to proactively identify the impact of a change across multiple applications and systems
• Perform technical due diligence and architectural assessments of third-party technologies and solutions.
• Experiment and test ideas, validate assumptions against needs, reach conclusions and recommend solutions
• Document standards, best practices, and engineering artifacts so others can easily understand, build and maintain best in class software systems
• Debug the critical problems which arise in production and execute effective solutions within the application and across multiple applications/systems
• Lead continuous learning and process improvement activities to improve design and overall engineering practices
• Grow talent by participating in hiring and mentoring team members

Competencies: The following items detail how you will be successful in this role.

• Customer Empathy: Customer Empathy is the ability to understand the perspectives, pain points, and experiences of customers. It involves actively putting oneself in the customer’s shoes, comprehending their needs and challenges, and using that understanding to provide a better, more customer-centric experience.
• Engineering Excellence: Engineering Excellence is about bringing great craftsmanship and thought leadership to deliver an outstanding p