Principal Analyst - Marketing Technology

We always knew there had to be a better way to buy used cars. One that would make the process easy and fun. So we created CarMax, and we've been changing the way America buys cars since we opened our first store in Richmond, Virginia in 1993.

BRIEF POSITION SUMMARY: This position is a technical leader in the software development life-cycle for the Marketing Technology team; performing software application technical analysis, architecture, design and development. The position is responsible for the review of the development, implementation, maintenance, and support of all projects within the Marketing Technology team, which provides direct support numerous Marketing business areas. This position will be responsible for ensuring that the software developed for our business partners meets CarMax®: quality expectations and the functional needs of our business partners. This requires an excellent team player, highly qualified to be a technical leader on medium and large development projects, driving technical direction and priorities for project teams while delivering high quality code across multiple projects. This requires top technical programming skills, RDBMS knowledge, and knowledge of design patterns for our diverse application environment. This position is the driver of systems performance, development standards, quality expectations, support, technical implementations and all other aspects of their application environment while delivering high quality code. This involves a passion for learning the Marketing processes supported by the team, and previous experience with Digital Marketing, customer data management, and Marketing Technologies is a plus.

* Software Development Methodology and Support: * Development and analysis of application designs for multiple large initiatives * Champion of the methodology by demonstrating ownership of all aspects of the team's agile development lifecycle * Passionate support & ownership of all areas under their application environment * Consistently mentor others in the production of all artifacts required of a SDLC * Effectively estimate time required for related technical efforts for projects of all sizes and delivers multiple complete solutions. * Ability to perform 24x7 on-call support as may be required * Functions as the second level support in after-hours calls as the support expert for their platform of mastery * Technical Expertise: * Build, design, and analyze simultaneous applications of any size throughout their application environment * Responsible for reviewing and mentoring the successful work of others in evaluating the business objectives, developing user requirements and generating technical specification for all applications within their application environment * Ability to engage in a critical support situation and effectively, efficiently, and quickly drive to a successful resolution * Proven experience leveraging existing software, development of reusable components, and elimination of redundancy in designs throughout their application environment * Experience in multiple large projects in leading the definition, selection, and implementation of enterprise tools, technologies and processes * Customer Interaction/Business Knowledge: * Complete understanding of all the business processes implemented in the team's applications and consistent ability to keep business objectives in focus * Ability to understand and document business requirements as well as provide a proposal of the appropriate solution * Complete understanding of the business processes supported by the application environment * Ability to lead customer/project meeting(s) for highly complex project definitions, needs assessment and design review * Leadership: * Able to influence the technical direction of others in order to successfully meet the business objectives of medium & large projects * Drives technical consensus within the team * Proven ability to mentor developers in best practices, procedures, and concepts * Ability to develop and deliver technical training and business understanding for developers * Ability to drive through obstacles and time constraints to successfully deliver a project to completion * Demonstrated ability to deliver solutions through building consensus in both business and technical perspectives * Ability to drive efficient resolution for system outages as well as performance and functional shortcomings * Assist in budgeting process

* Provide technical guidance and leadership to mid-level and senior development staff * Advanced knowledge of team software development concepts and techniques and the ability to communicate those concepts to all team members including patterns in the areas of security, scalability, and usability * Experience in creating and developing software throughout the application environment following the Agile methodologies * Ability to create, review and analyze software designs and effectively communicate the rationale behind the designs across IT Teams * Expert understanding of all aspects of the application environment's technical software requirements including security, scalability, and usability * Ability to interact with and direct the tasks of outside consultants in a professional manner while helping them drive to successful project completion * Demonstrated ability to compare and contrast alternative approaches to meet objectives while assessing risk both quantitatively and qualitatively * Possess strong organizational and time management skills * Demonstrated flexibility while managing multiple priorities * Education and/or Experience: * Years of experience * Typically 10+ years of development experience required Education preference * 4 year degree in IT related course of study * Computer skills * Experience in appropriate development language * required (see Specialties section) * RDBMS experience * Typically 10+ years of relational database development experience Expertise in the following required: * Microsoft SQL Server (2005, 2008, 2012) scripting and Data modeling * Microsoft C#.NET * SaaS and B2B integrations * Web API and WCF Service Development * Experience in the following preferred: * Digital marketing experience * Marketing Technology experience * Customer MDM * Customer relationship management * MVC 4.5 experience a plus * Language Skills: * Influence and communicate effectively with IT management and associates * Able to target communications to the appropriate audience (Post-mortems, SDLC artifacts, etc) * Able to build consensus and acceptance of technical direction to audiences of all sizes * Effective documenting ability to present application environment patterns, standards, and processes * Expert ability in presenting alternative solutions with recommendations to IT management and business users * Must have strong presentation development and delivery skills including the ability to adjust presentations to match the appropriate audience * Strong written and verbal communication skills * Ability to convey a professional and positive image in all situations Mathematical Skills: * Requires strong analytical and organizational skills * Demonstrated ability in statistical analysis, advanced calculations, and reporting * Demonstrated ability to gather, evaluate, and present performance metrics and benchmarks to resolve or prevent system problems * Ability to evaluate and interpret complex system error logs, performance metrics, and other application or server output in order to identify problems in server performance or application execution * Ability to evaluate the ROI (Return On Investment) of systems development & enhancements to the application environment and effectively weigh the financial alternatives involved with various technical solutions and proposals * Consistently demonstrates the ability to participate in the budgeting process to identify the Total Cost of Ownership regarding their applications environment in order to assist purchasing decisions * Reasoning Ability: * Expertise in solving technical problems and presenting solutions which impact all areas of their application environment * Excellent analytical, troubleshooting, and problem solving skills * Performs well in high pressure or stressful situations * Proven ability to review all designs that impact their application environment * Demonstrated ability to effectively estimate effort, duration and impact required for large technical solutions * Ability to evaluate long term impacts when making recommendations and decisions