Director of Software Engineering, Platform Services

Credit Acceptance Corporation•San Francisco, CA

8d•Hybrid

About The Position

Credit Acceptance is seeking a Director of Software Engineering to lead its Platform Services organization. The director will set the strategy and manage the day-to-day work of a team that develops, enhances, and supports integrated platform services for engineering teams. The role includes defining the company’s approach to AI-assisted and specification-driven development, delivering golden-path templates and reference implementations, and owning developer environments and inner-loop tooling, including build and test performance and environment provisioning. The director is accountable for the availability, performance, and support model of shared services, including service-level objectives and on-call coverage. The role develops a secure, reliable, and efficient platform experience, drives adoption across product verticals, partners with teams responsible for delivery pipelines, cloud infrastructure, and runtime platforms, and reports on engineering productivity, platform adoption, service performance, and project progress. The director aligns platform strategy with business objectives and budget, evaluates build, buy, and open-source options, and ensures tools and services meet security, privacy, and audit requirements. This leader builds and manages engineering teams, recruits and develops engineering leaders and talent, plans for technical and organizational scaling, and leads change aligned with company objectives. The director guides technical execution, keeps team knowledge current, provides feedback, addresses underperformance, recognizes contributions, and promotes a results-oriented culture focused on execution, quality, and speed. The position follows a hybrid work model: two work-from-home days and three standard in-office days each week with the team and key stakeholders at the local office. Candidates must reside in or be willing to relocate to the greater Southfield, Michigan area; greater Bellevue, Washington area; or San Francisco Bay Area, California. The position offers a base salary range of $250,513–$350,718 and is eligible for an annual variable cash and equity incentive of 20–60%, with actual compensation depending on factors including hub location, skills, experience, background, education, and certifications.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Computer Science or an engineering/technical field; required degrees must be from institutions accredited by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation or equivalent.
10+ years of experience in highly technical software engineering or technical architecture roles at large organizations or innovative startups.
5+ years of supervisory, consulting, or team-lead experience, with demonstrated ability to manage multiple teams.
Experience leading adoption of AI-assisted software development at scale, including coding assistants, agentic development workflows, evaluation, and guardrails for releasing generated code.
History of owning production services, including service-level objectives, on-call rotations, and incident response.
Proven ability to consolidate duplicated capabilities into a single supported platform, including migration and decommissioning work.
Ability to communicate complex information clearly and promptly to C-level leaders and people at all organizational levels.
Must reside in or be willing to relocate to the greater Southfield, Michigan area; greater Bellevue, Washington area; or San Francisco Bay Area, California.
Working knowledge of the modern developer toolchain, including source control and code review workflows, continuous integration, containers, infrastructure as code, and developer portal or service catalog products.
Ability to think strategically, align technical initiatives with business objectives, and formulate a team technical strategy and roadmap in partnership with other teams.
Success growing a team and fostering a collaborative, ambitious, outcome-driven culture that embodies company values.
Comfort navigating unclear or nonexistent processes and identifying and changing ineffective processes.
History of using data for decision-making and providing a technical vision that teams consistently deliver against.
Automation mindset focused on reducing manual interventions where relevant.
Strong executive presence and ability to advance ideas and initiatives with the customer’s and company’s best interests in mind.

Nice To Haves

MBA.
Familiarity with agent development frameworks, model access layers, or other AI platform capabilities.
Background in a regulated industry or experience working closely with security, audit, and compliance functions.
Working knowledge of financial services, loan origination systems, web-based applications, and the automotive industry.

Responsibilities

Provide strategy, leadership, and day-to-day management for the Platform Services organization.
Lead development, enhancement, and support of integrated platform services used by Credit Acceptance engineering teams.
Define the company’s approach to AI-assisted and specification-driven development, including coding assistants, agent development frameworks, and safe-release standards and guardrails.
Deliver golden-path templates, scaffolds, and reference implementations, including the frameworks and patterns they establish.
Own developer environments and inner-loop tooling, including build and test performance and environment provisioning.
Manage availability, performance, and support for shared services, including service-level objectives and on-call coverage.
Create a developer platform experience that enables fast, reliable, efficient, and secure delivery, and grow adoption across product verticals.
Partner with teams operating delivery pipelines, cloud infrastructure, and runtime platforms to deliver and support platform capabilities.
Establish and report measures of engineering productivity, platform adoption, service performance, and project progress.
Align platform strategy with business objectives, priorities, and budget realities; assess build, buy, and open-source options against operational capability.
Ensure engineering tools and shared services meet security, privacy, and audit requirements and align with corporate goals.
Support business growth initiatives by aligning the technology vision with business strategy.
Build and manage diverse engineering teams; recruit and develop engineering leaders and talent.
Set team direction, plan for personnel and technical scaling challenges, and lead organizational change aligned with company objectives.
Translate platform strategy and team needs into technical building blocks, mentor technical output, and keep team skills and knowledge current.
Provide continuous feedback, address underperformance, and recognize team members’ strengths and contributions.
Promote a results-oriented culture focused on execution, quality, and speed, while maintaining a high quality bar for services other teams depend on.