CarMax, the way your career should be!
About this job
The Engineer II, ML & AI Engineering role at CarMax is responsible for building and operating scalable machine learning and AI capabilities across the organization. You will partner closely with Data Scientists to productionize models and develop reliable inference services, with a focus on testing, monitoring, scalability, and operational excellence. This role plays a key part in delivering resilient, high-performing AI and ML solutions that power critical business and customer experiences.
We are looking for an engineer with a strong foundation in software and cloud engineering who is passionate about transforming machine learning and AI innovations into mission-critical, high-visibility capabilities that support CarMax’s iconic customer experience.
Essential Responsibilities:
Build and maintain production machine learning capabilities spanning feature engineering, training, evaluation, deployment, and model inference supporting initiatives across the organization, with attention to latency, throughput, and cost
Design and build agentic AI systems, including tool use, orchestration, memory, and the evaluation harnesses and observability needed to run them reliably in production.
Own the operational health of production ML and agentic systems: monitoring and alerting for model performance, data drift, and prediction quality, plus on-call incident response end to end and the follow-through that prevents repeat failures
Collaborate with Data Scientists to translate experimental work into tested, maintainable, production-grade code.
Partner with engineering and product teams to turn machine learning models into mission-critical, high-visibility capabilities that support CarMax's iconic customer experience
Demonstrates a passion for Data Science and Machine Learning, continuously driving innovation and improvement in these domains.
Minimum Qualifications:
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
2+ years of professional experience in software engineering, systems engineering, machine learning engineering, or AI engineering, including experience building, deploying, and supporting production applications in an enterprise environment.
Proficiency in a programming language such as Python, Java, or C#, and hands-on experience with ML frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow
Working knowledge of distributed databases (e.g., DynamoDB, Cosmos DB), caching systems, and vector databases, with experience applying them to high-throughput, low-latency production workloads
Excellent communication skills, with the ability to adapt messaging to technical and non-technical audiences
Experience on a fast-paced, highly collaborative agile team within a product-oriented organization
Preferred Qualifications:
Agentic development workflows: Comfortable using AI coding agents to plan, implement, test, and review software, along with sound judgment about where agent-generated work requires human verification
MLOps practices: experiment tracking, model registries, reproducible training, and CI/CD or automated retraining for ML (MLflow, Azure ML, SageMaker, Kubeflow, or equivalent)
Experience with model serving platforms and real-time inference (Azure ML endpoints, Databricks, SageMaker, or equivalent)
Experience designing or operating microservices and distributed architectures (containers, Kubernetes, service-to-service APIs)
Work Location and Arrangement: This role can be based out of the CarMax Home Office in Richmond, VA and Associates will work onsite 4 days per week or this role can be based out of our Dallas Technology hub, Plano, TX and Associates will work onsite 2 days per week.
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.
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 250 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.
The annual salary for this position is:
$88,800.00 - $133,200.00May be eligible for bonus and equity.
Benefits:
Except as otherwise required by state law, CarMax Associates are entitled to the following paid sick, vacation, and holiday time.
Associates that are considered full-time hourly or commission/incentive eligible:
- To earn up to 48 hours of sick time per year accrued on a per pay period basis and between 80 hours and 200 hours per year of vacation time after a 90 day waiting period depending on years of continuous service with the Company.
- For 8 hours of pay for each of a total of 6 paid scheduled holidays per year plus 1 floating holiday. If such an Associate does work on a scheduled holiday due to business need, they are eligible for Holiday Premium Pay.
Associates considered full-time salaried are entitled to paid time away with no specified limit as needed for sick, vacation, bereavement, jury duty, holidays, floating holiday, etc. subject to manager approval.
For more details about benefits, please visit our CarMax Benefits website.
Upon an applicant's request, CarMax will consider reasonable accommodation to complete the CarMax Job Application.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
- 2+ years of professional experience in software engineering, systems engineering, machine learning engineering, or AI engineering
- Experience building, deploying, and supporting production applications in an enterprise environment
- Proficiency in Python, Java, C#, or another programming language
- Hands-on experience with PyTorch, TensorFlow, or another machine learning framework
- Working knowledge of distributed databases, caching systems, and vector databases for high-throughput, low-latency workloads
- Excellent communication skills with technical and non-technical audiences
- Experience working on a fast-paced, collaborative agile team in a product-oriented organization
- Experience using AI coding agents for software planning, implementation, testing, and review
- Experience with MLOps practices including experiment tracking, model registries, reproducible training, CI/CD, or automated ML retraining
- Experience with MLflow, Azure ML, SageMaker, Kubeflow, or equivalent tools
- Experience with model serving platforms and real-time inference
- Experience designing or operating microservices and distributed architectures
- Experience with containers, Kubernetes, and service-to-service APIs
CarMax Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about CarMax and has not been reviewed or approved by CarMax.
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Retirement Support — Retirement benefits appear robust, including a 401(k) with dollar-for-dollar matching up to the first 6% of base salary and immediate vesting. Stock purchase programs with a discount or match are positioned as an additional long-term wealth-building option.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage is described as comprehensive, spanning medical, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance, with access beginning relatively early for eligible associates. Mental health resources and wellbeing programs are also present as part of the health offering.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time-off offerings are described as broad, including vacation, holidays, sick time, and paid leave related to new child placement or birth/adoption in addition to family medical leave options. The structure varies by role and tenure, but the overall menu is sizable.
CarMax Insights
What We Do
CarMax revolutionized the auto industry by delivering the honest, transparent and high-integrity car buying experience customers want and deserve. This disruptive thinking has helped us become the nation’s largest retailer of used cars with more than 200 stores nationwide. And thanks to our amazing team of nearly 25,000 associates, we have been recognized as one of the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For® - 16 years in a row! Committed to hiring people with strong values of integrity, transparency and respect, we offer unmatched training and support for associate career growth, and have been recognized as one of Training Magazine’s "Training Top 125" companies in America. We are also proud to be a best place to work for Veterans, and the #2 Best Workplace for Retail.
