Job Application for Lead Software Engineer at McMaster-Carr

Who We Are

McMaster-Carr is a leading e-commerce company offering products that help keep operations running smoothly, innovators designing the next generation of solutions, and makers creating and manufacturing. Our customers have trusted us for over 120 years.

We earn and keep that trust by offering the right products, making them easy to find, and delivering them fast. Our industry-leading e-commerce experience, indispensable product selection, and world-class service bring hundreds of thousands of customers to McMaster.com each day.

Our curious, exceptional people are at the heart of our evolution and customer experience. They turn new challenges and disruptive technologies into opportunities to refine our operations, expand our product offering, and deliver a better experience for every customer.

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 future. 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, making product decisions while building things that real people interact with directly.

Our team is hybrid and comes onsite three days a week in Elmhurst, IL.

What You'll Do

As a lead software engineer, you'll scope and scale the systems that power McMaster-Carr's e-commerce experience. You'll start by learning the codebase and customer journey while shaping meaningful features. 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. Along the way, you'll take projects from research through launch and grow into technical leadership influencing the quality of your team’s work through technical designs and mentoring the team.

Right now, we're actively growing in the following areas:

AI Assistant Development: You'll build and expand McMaster.ai, our domain-expert AI assistant, and the platform that lets teammates add new Skills to it. You'll turn McMaster's product data and customer history into a continual learning experience that interprets intent, narrows options, explains tradeoffs, and carries context across sessions to make complex industrial work feel effortless.
Customer Navigation: You'll build and evolve the systems that help 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: You'll design and evolve end-to-end ordering experiences that reduce friction from checkout to mobile ordering.
Product Merchandising: You'll strengthen the internal platforms that power sourcing, inventory planning, receiving, and supplier relationships, helping the company make disciplined investments and scale responsibly.
Fulfillment & Automation: You'll lead development of software that integrates with warehouse operations, fulfillment, delivery, and customer service to reduce manual work and get orders to customers faster.

Who You Are

Our strongest engineers are curious, driven, thrive in collaborative environments, and love solving hard problems.

What we’re looking for:

4+ years of professional full-stack or backend software engineering experience, with strong proficiency in a compiled language such as C#, Java, C++, or Rust (see our Software Engineer II role for earlier-career experience)
Experience designing and delivering large-scale, service-oriented systems, writing maintainable, scalable code, and strengthening architecture, testing, and monitoring for reliability and performance
Experience owning projects from early research through launch and iterative refinement, building platforms that hold up over the long run without losing sight of execution details
A thoughtful, analytical approach to problem-solving and software design
Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills, paired with a commitment to developing others through code reviews, coaching, and mentorship

Technologies We Use

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

Base salary: $191,900 - $240,000

Total cash compensation typically ranges from $240,000 - $324,000, which includes annual cash profit sharing based on company profitability.

You will also receive a signing bonus and a relocation stipend (if applicable).

Benefits

Growth & Learning

100% tuition reimbursement
Informal and formal mentorship
Employee resource groups

Health & Wellbeing

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

Time Off

Paid time off for vacation and personal time

Family & Future

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

Equal Opportunity Employer

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.

Data We Collect

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.

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Applicant Statement

I certify that all information and the resume I have provided in order to apply for and secure work with McMaster-Carr is true, complete and correct. I understand any information provided by me that is found to be false, incomplete or misrepresented in any respect, will be sufficient cause to (i) cancel further consideration of this application, or (ii) immediately discharge me from McMaster-Carr's service, whenever it is discovered.

McMaster-Carr is an Equal Opportunity Employer. I understand that McMaster-Carr does not unlawfully discriminate in employment, and no question on this application is used for the purpose of limiting or excusing any applicant from consideration for employment on a basis prohibited by applicable local, state or federal law.

If I am hired, I understand I am free to resign at any time, with or without cause and without prior notice, and McMaster-Carr reserves the same right to terminate my employment at any time, with or without cause and without prior notice, except as may be required by law. This application does not constitute an agreement or contract for employment for any specified period or definite duration. I understand that no supervisor or representative of McMaster-Carr is authorized to make any assurances to the contrary and that no implied, oral or written agreements contrary to the foregoing express language are valid unless they are in writing and signed by McMaster-Carr's president.

DO NOT SIGN UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THIS APPLICANT STATEMENT.

I certify that I have read, fully understand and accept all terms of the foregoing Applicant Statement.

I understand that this application remains current for only 30 days. At the conclusion of that time, if I have not heard from McMaster-Carr and still wish to be considered for employment, it will be necessary to reapply and fill out a new application.

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Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in McMaster-Carr’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

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If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

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Lead Software Engineer

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