--- title: 'Software Engineer II - Technical Leadership Track at McMaster-Carr' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-ii-technical-leadership-track-mcmaster-carr-chicago-m05bwzby9edm' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-06' --- # Software Engineer II - Technical Leadership Track at McMaster-Carr - **Company:** McMaster-Carr - **Location:** Chicago, IL - **Posted:** 2025-10-30 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-06 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/mcmastercarr/jobs/4053357009 ## Job description ## 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, so our customers can solve problems with greater speed, precision, and ease. Our industry-leading e-commerce experience, indispensable product selection, and world-class service bring hundreds of thousands of customers to [McMaster.com](http://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](https://www.builtinchicago.org/articles/what-its-build-tech-career-mcmaster-carr-ownership-and-long-term-growth) 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 As part of our software engineering team, you'll develop the high-scale production software that powers our e-commerce experience and our world-class operations. From customer-facing web features to distribution center automation, we design and scale critical systems that enable McMaster-Carr to deliver same-day or next-day orders reliably and efficiently. This is a track to grow into technical leadership roles that include people, project, and technology management responsibilities. Your progression is driven by the impact of your work. As a software engineer, you'll work on projects like: - Improve how customers find what they need on our website - You will build and evolve the systems that help our customers find, evaluate, and understand millions of industrial products across our digital publications. This includes improving search relevance with LLMs and simplifying navigation across our product offering that makes our website faster and easier to use. - [McMaster.ai](http://mcmaster.ai/): Build and scale our domain-expert AI assistant that turns McMaster’s product data and customer history into a continuously learning assistant that interprets intent, narrows options, explains tradeoffs, and carries context across sessions to make complex industrial work feel effortless. - Make fulfillment smarter and help us plan ahead - Design systems that improve how we pick, pack, and ship orders so thousands of customers each day get what they need, faster. ## What You'll Do - 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 develop features that are small enough to help you ramp quickly, but substantial enough to matter. - As you continue to design, implement, and deliver features, you’ll start taking on less‑defined challenges where you’ll sharpen requirements in addition to developing thoughtful 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. - As you progress you will begin to coach others and broaden your collaboration. This can look like participation in code reviews, mentoring more junior engineers, and contributing to team-wide engineering quality. You will continue to work across teams as you design and implement features that can impact our customers. - Throughout your career you will drive your development. You will develop domain expertise, explore new technologies, and bring new perspectives to the challenges your team is tackling. In doing so, you'll create clarity and momentum that enables you and your teammates to deliver exceptional experiences. ## How You'll Grow - You will start by diving into assignments that require thoughtful solutions and a deep understanding of the customer benefit or business need, not just execution. You will develop larger features with open questions that require you to do research and think through and discuss tradeoffs before implementation. - Throughout your career you will drive your development. You will develop domain expertise, explore new technologies, and bring new perspectives to the challenges your team is tackling. In doing so, you'll create clarity and momentum that enables you and your teammates to deliver exceptional experiences. ## Who You Are We’re looking for curious, driven engineers who thrive in collaborative environments and are energized by solving hard problems. Ideal candidates will have: - Contributed to live projects or deployed applications used by real users. - Strong proficiency in compiled languages such as C#, Java, C++, or Rust. - A thoughtful, analytical approach to problem-solving and software design. - 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. - Clear, confident communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences. - Interest in growing as a mentor, coach, and leader. Cash Compensation - Total cash compensation is generally around $185,000 to $230,000 and includes a profit sharing based on company profitability. - You will also receive a signing bonus and relocation stipend ## 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 Family & Future - Paid parental leave for all new parents - Adoption and surrogacy assistance - First-time home buyer assistance - Industry-leading company-funded retirement accounts Time Off - Paid vacation and personal time ## 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](https://www.mcmaster.com/cpra_job_applicant_notification/). ## About McMaster-Carr ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: McMaster-Carr is a privately held e-commerce and catalog company that supplies over 600,000 industrial products to businesses for maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO). - **Entity Type**: Private (family-owned, bootstrapped) - **Headquarters**: Elmhurst, Illinois, USA - **Founded**: 1901 - **Founders**: Not publicly disclosed (family‑owned business) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Industrial supplies & equipment distribution (MRO) - **Target customers**: B2B – engineers, maintenance teams, purchasing agents, and manufacturing/construction firms (small businesses to large enterprises) - **Mission / purpose**: To be the complete, one‑stop source for industrial supplies, delivering high‑quality products with fast, reliable service. (Paraphrased from the company’s stated focus on “handpick[ing] every product” and shipping 98% of orders from stock the same day.) ## Products & Services - **Industrial Supply Catalog**: Over 600,000 SKUs covering fasteners, raw materials, plumbing, electrical, safety equipment, precision tools, and more. Offered as a SaaS‑like web platform with CAD downloads, material certificates, and 3D models. - **Same‑Day / Next‑Day Delivery**: 98% of orders ship from stock at standard rates, with same‑day or next‑day delivery to many U.S. locations. - **In‑House Software & Technology**: Custom‑built e‑commerce engine, inventory management, distribution automation, and mobile applications developed by internal engineering teams. ## Market Standing - **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company) - **Key Metric**: Annual revenue is not publicly reported; industry estimates often place it in the $3–5 billion range, but the company does not confirm figures. - **Notable Investors**: None (family‑owned; no external funding raised) - **Growth Signals**: - Active hiring across six U.S. facilities (Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Princeton, Fort Worth) for roles in software engineering, distribution automation, customer solutions, and management. - Expanding its technology team with focus on automation, data centers, and mobile app development. - Recently posted openings for “Automation Engineering Manager” and “CMMS Engineer,” indicating investment in warehouse and process automation. ## Competitive Advantages - **Massive Catalog & Fast Fulfillment**: Unmatched breadth of inventory (600k+ products) combined with near‑universal in‑stock availability and same‑day shipping—a difficult combination for competitors to replicate. - **In‑House Technology**: All software (e‑commerce, distribution, logistics) is built and maintained internally, giving McMaster‑Carr tight integration and the ability to rapidly iterate. - **Strong Supplier Relationships & Quality Control**: Products are hand‑picked and verified; material certificates and traceability are standard. - **Engineering‑First Culture**: Technology teams are highly autonomous and work on challenging projects (warehouse robotics, high‑performance web apps, data center design). ## Strategic Focus - **Automation & Distribution Efficiency**: Investing heavily in automated material handling, robotics, and facility reliability to maintain speed and accuracy as order volumes grow. - **Technology Talent Development**: Growing the software engineering and IT teams to support custom development of internal tools, customer‑facing platforms, and infrastructure. - **Geographic Expansion**: Operations centers in five major U.S. regions (plus the Chicago HQ) to provide fast delivery nationwide; newer facilities in Fort Worth and Princeton signal continued geographic scaling. ## Why Work Here - **Culture & Values**: Emphasizes “capability, not skill”—hiring curious people who can grow across roles. Strong inclusion and diversity programs, prayer/meditation spaces, all‑gender restrooms, mentoring groups. - **Work Model**: Hybrid for many tech roles (typically 3 days on‑site per week); distribution and customer‑facing roles are generally on‑site. Remote flexibility varies by position. - **Compensation & Benefits**: - No‑monthly‑premium medical, dental, pharmacy, and vision plans for employees and dependents. - Generous profit sharing and company‑funded retirement accounts. - 100% tuition reimbursement, adoption/surrogacy assistance, paid parental leave. - First‑time home‑buyer assistance, financial counselors, and college assistance for dependents. - **Engineering Culture**: Engineers work on diverse projects (web, mobile, data centers, automation) with support for learning through reading groups, guilds, and technical leadership tracks. ## Sources 1. [mcmaster.com/careers](https://www.mcmaster.com/careers) 2. [mcmaster.com](https://www.mcmaster.com/) 3. [builtin.com/company/mcmaster-carr](https://builtin.com/company/mcmaster-carr) 4. 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