Who we are looking for: ACV Auctions is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join our MAX Engineering team and play a key technical leadership role in advancing our SaaS product, MAX Digital. This position focuses on the architecture, design, and delivery of robust, scalable, and secure Java-based platforms and services, leveraging frameworks such as Spring, Hibernate, Struts, and Maven, hosted in AWS, and utilizing SQL Server or similar relational databases. The ideal candidate brings extensive experience and a proven track record of leading the architecture and delivery of enterprise-scale Java applications. You thrive in shaping technical direction, establishing engineering standards, and mentoring engineers. You excel at building consensus across teams, driving innovation, and ensuring the continued reliability, maintainability, and performance of our products. Exceptional communication and leadership skills, along with a collaborative, team-oriented approach, are essential for guiding the next generation of our SaaS solutions. What you will do: Actively and consistently support all efforts to simplify and enhance the customer experience. Architect, deliver, and maintain large-scale, distributed Java services and systems, ensuring resilience, security, and scalability across the company’s core platforms. Define, drive, and implement engineering best practices and standards for Java, Spring, Hibernate, Struts, Maven, and associated technology stacks, influencing technical direction and tooling across multiple teams and products. Lead the technical design and implementation of critical APIs, services, and full-stack MVC applications, utilizing advanced knowledge of data modeling, protocols, storage, message brokers, and interface patterns. Set and enforce standards for code quality, performance, observability, security, and operational readiness for all Java-based systems, including integration with AWS (ECR, ECS, API Gateway, Route 53), Terraform, and modern CI/CD pipelines. Own and evolve the multi-year technical roadmap for Java applications and supporting infrastructure, proactively identifying business risk and technology debt, and ensuring robust lifecycle management of tools, libraries, and frameworks. Collaborate and communicate effectively with cross-functional engineering, product, and operations teams to define requirements, architect solutions, and coordinate system-wide rollouts. Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and guidance to multiple engineering teams, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and technical excellence. Lead and conduct rigorous code reviews, develop and enforce high standards for documentation and test suite robustness, and ensure the technical team rapidly diagnoses and resolves complex issues in production. Champion and implement engineering-wide security and compliance standards, ensuring all Java services meet or exceed regulatory and business requirements. Lead the design and implementation of advanced data models using Hibernate ORM, SQL Server (or other RDBMS), and patterns such as normalization, EAV, append-only persistence, and event sourcing at scale. Influence and contribute to the definition of company-wide standards for deployment, monitoring, and optimization of Java applications using tools like Datadog, CloudWatch Logs, and custom solutions. Drive the adoption and evolution of custom software patterns, architectural approaches, and reusable frameworks to address unique and complex software challenges. Serve as a technical escalation point for the most complex issues, providing swift, effective, and sustainable solutions across the business’ technology portfolio. Ensure high reliability, performance, and security for products and services, while balancing multiple competing priorities in a fast-paced, agile environment. Perform additional duties as assigned. What you will need: Ability to read, write, speak and understand English. Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical discipline or equivalent practical experience 8+ years’ software development/engineering experience Minimum 8 years of experience architecting, building, and maintaining SaaS web applications using Java, Spring Framework, Hibernate, and related technologies at scale. Deep expertise in designing and implementing large-scale, distributed systems using Java, with a strong emphasis on scalability, maintainability, security, and performance. Demonstrated experience setting and influencing engineering-wide standards for architecture, technical documentation, testing, observability, build systems, and operational practices. Mastery of the Spring ecosystem, Hibernate ORM, Maven, Struts, and modern Java application frameworks, with the ability to drive adoption of best practices and new technologies across teams. Proven experience integrating and optimizing cloud-native architectures using AWS services such as ECS, ECR, API Gateway, S3, Route 53, and leveraging infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform for provisioning and management. Advanced proficiency in SQL programming, relational database design (SQL Server, PostgreSQL, or similar), and building complex data models using ORM patterns, including normalization, EAV, append-only, and event sourcing. Extensive experience with Docker, container orchestration, and deployment automation; familiarity with Kubernetes and serverless/cloud-native deployment patterns. Expert-level knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and automation tools such as GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or similar, driving improvements to build, release, and deployment processes. Exceptional skill in release management, code quality enforcement, automated testing strategies, and the full software development lifecycle (SDLC). Demonstrated ability to architect, plan, and execute multi-year lifecycle strategies for applications, libraries, and supporting infrastructure, proactively managing technical debt and risk. Advanced expertise in debugging, profiling, and optimizing distributed systems using tools like Datadog, CloudWatch Logs, and distributed tracing frameworks. Strong leadership, mentoring, and communication skills, with a proven track record of guiding and developing engineers, leading code reviews, and fostering a culture of technical excellence. Experience working effectively across multiple teams and time zones, engaging with cross-functional stakeholders, and influencing company-wide engineering direction. Proven ability to rapidly troubleshoot and resolve the most complex technical issues, modify or develop custom patterns, and implement robust solutions under competing priorities in an agile environment. Commitment to enforcing and advancing security standards and ensuring compliance for all Java-based products and services. Proven ability to work effectively in a geographically dispersed team across multiple time zones.
