Lead Software Engineer

Chicago · Chicagolead

EngineeringSoftware Engineer

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Quick Summary

Key Responsibilities

understanding our goals, getting a clear picture of the customer journey, and building fluency in the codebase. As you onboard,

Technical Tools

EngineeringSoftware Engineer

About the Role

~2 min read

Who We Are

McMaster‑Carr is a leading e‑commerce company that industrial customers have trusted for more than 120 years. Our products help customers restore manufacturing lines quickly, keep operations running smoothly, and prototype the next generation of innovative products.

We earn that trust by offering the right products, making them easy to find, and delivering them fast--so customers can solve problems with speed, precision, and confidence. This role is a pathway to senior engineering management and technical leadership—your growth is determined by your impact, not by tenure.

Our Culture

We intentionally cultivate a culture focused on clear execution and long‑term growth. We are responsible for building systems that endure for decades and support the company’s long-term growth. That responsibility means engineering work starts with a deep understanding of the problem and its impact, grounded in clear ownership, open communication, and direct feedback. Our teams are trusted to make thoughtful decisions about how work gets done, balancing a high bar for quality with practical execution. As an engineering leader here, you'll have significant autonomy with end-to-end ownership where you make product decisions while building things real people interact with directly.

How You'll Make An Impact

Our engineering teams operate within domains: distinct, high‑impact areas of our platform that let engineers dive deep, build expertise, and release work that matters. Right now, we’re actively growing in the following areas:

McMaster.ai: Build and scale our domain-expert AI assistant that turns McMaster’s product data and customer history into a continuously learning assistant—interpreting intent, narrowing options, explaining tradeoffs, and carrying context across sessions to make complex industrial work feel effortless.
Customer Navigation: build and evolve the systems that help our customers find, evaluate, and understand millions of industrial products across our digital publications, including improving search relevance with LLMs and simplifying navigation across our product offering.
Order-to-Payment Flow: design and evolve end‑to‑end ordering experiences that reduce friction from checkout to mobile ordering.
Product Merchandising: strengthen the internal platforms that power sourcing, inventory planning, receiving, and supplier relationships, helping the company make disciplined investments and scale responsibly.
Fulfillment & Automation: lead development of software that integrates with warehouse operations, fulfillment, delivery, and customer service to reduce manual work and get orders to customers faster.

Responsibilities

~1 min read

→The first 30 days are about learning with purpose: understanding our goals, getting a clear picture of the customer journey, and building fluency in the codebase. As you onboard, you'll design and implement features that are small enough to help you ramp quickly, but substantial enough to matter.
→After you’ve delivered your first features, you’ll start taking on less‑defined challenges where you’ll sharpen requirements and produce thoughtful, durable solutions that meaningfully improve the customers experience. In doing so, you'll create clarity and momentum that enables you and your teammates to deliver exceptional experiences.

4+ years of professional fullstack or backend software engineering experience (see our Software Engineer II role for earlier career experience)
Experience in delivering proof‑of‑concepts and resilient production systems, contributing from early research and architectural design to development, launch, and iterative refinement.
Ability to write high-quality, maintainable, and scalable code with Systems Design and SOLID principles.
Experience improving system architecture, testing, and monitoring to ensure reliability and performance.
A commitment to developing others; using code reviews, coaching, and shared best practices to help the team deliver its best work.
Ability to collaborate cross-functionally with operations, product, and UX teams to ensure business value and user impact.
A track record of designing platforms and customer experiences that will endure over years while remaining close to the details of execution.

Backend: NET, .NET 10, ASP.NET Core, C#, Python
Frontend: React, Typescript, JavaScript, CSS
Database: MongoDB, Elasticsearch, SQL, Db2, Redis
Testing: Selenium, Playwright, Xunit, Jest
Infrastructure: Kubernetes, Jenkins, Gitlab, Azure, Linux, VMWare, IIS
LLMs: OpenAI, Copilot, Claude, Gemini, Grok, perplexity, deepseek
Applied AI: RAG, Embeddings, Vectorization, Machine Learning, Computer Vision
Dev Tools: Swagger, Git
Messaging /Data Streaming: Kafka, MQ

Cash Compensation

Total cash compensation is generally around $235,000 to $310,000 and includes a profit sharing based on company profitability.
You will also receive a relocation stipend (if applicable) and signing bonus.

Benefits

100% tuition reimbursement
Informal and formal mentorship
Employee resource groups

Medical, dental, pharmacy, and vision plans with no monthly premiums
Inclusive, all-gender benefits

Paid parental leave for all new parents
Adoption and surrogacy assistance
First-time home buyer assistance
Industry-leading company-funded retirement accounts

Paid vacation and personal time

Who You Are

We’re looking for curious, driven engineers who thrive in collaborative environments and love solving hard problems. Ideal candidates will have:

Experience designing and delivering large-scale, service-oriented systems.
Strong proficiency in compiled languages such as C#, Java, C++, or Rust.
A thoughtful, analytical approach to problem-solving and software design.
Clear, confident communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences.
Interest in mentoring, coaching, and growing as a leader.

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and dedicated to providing employees a workplace with reasonable accommodations and free of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. At McMaster-Carr, we do not make employment decisions based on age, ethnicity, citizenship status, military status, gender identity and expression, race, religion, disability status, marital status, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected group.

This position is not eligible for work authorization sponsorship by McMaster-Carr.

We may collect professional, education and employment-related data, and any assessments made throughout the recruiting process, to evaluate candidacy for employment. To communicate with job applicants, we may collect applicant names, contact information, and other personal identifiers, including those outlined in the California customer records statute. Through voluntary disclosure, we may also collect protected classifications under federal or California law (e.g., race, gender, etc.). For additional details about the personal information we collect and its uses, please click here.