Autotrader life
Our unique and inclusive culture is defined by our people. Take a look at their experiences to understand just how they’ve helped to shape the way we work and how we interact with each other.
What’s it really like working in tech at Autotrader?
November 02, 2026
When you're considering a new role, a job advert only tells part of the story.
You want to know what people are working on. How teams solve problems. What opportunities exist to learn and grow. And what it's really like behind the scenes.
That's why colleagues across Engineering, Product, Design, Data Science and Analytics regularly share their experiences on our dedicated Medium blogs.
Written by the people doing the work, these articles offer an honest look at the challenges, decisions and learning happening across Autotrader every day.
You'll find everything from personal career stories and technical deep dives to AI, data science and product development. Our teams also contribute to wider industry conversations, including publishing technical research and presenting at conferences.
Here’s a few highlights and topics you’ll find covered on the blog:
Our engineers regularly write about the challenges they're tackling and the decisions behind the technology they build.
From architecture and modern tooling to testing and software delivery, these articles provide a practical look at the thinking that shapes our products and platforms.
Featured reads:
- Emina and Craig on Modulith Architecture: Scaling Simplicity in Complex Systems
- Richard on Real-time personalisation: how we’re using Spark Structured Streaming to make millions of daily interactions on Autotrader more relevant for buyers and retailers.
- Dan on Extreme Programming in practice
- Biswadeep on why a “human first” testing framework was the secret to successfully scaling our AI agent’s Playwright capabilities
AI, machine learning and analytics play an important role across Autotrader, and our teams openly share what they're learning.
You'll find articles covering everything from search and ranking models to large language models, experimentation and applied data science.
Our teams also contribute to industry research, including publishing technical papers and presenting findings at conferences such as the Royal Statistical Society's annual conference.
Featured reads:
- Ioanna on building an LLM-Powered tool from concept to production
- Tom with his thoughts on Building AI Products from a Data Scientist perspective
- Tom and Dustin on our approach to Bayesian A/B testing, which developed into a technical paper accepted on arXiv!
Our design teams share how they approach real problems and turn ideas into experiences that work for our users.
From research and experimentation to content and interaction design, explore the thinking, collaboration and decisions that shape what we create.
Featured reads:
- Anastasiia on creating a consistent set of illustrations with ChatGPT and Gemini
- Ryan shares how we redesigned Autotrader’s sign-in process
- Demi shares what a week in the life of Content Design looks like
Technology careers rarely follow a straight line, and our colleagues' stories prove it.
On our Medium blog, you'll find people sharing their journeys into Engineering, Product and Data, including career changes, transitions from academia and lessons learned along the way.
Whether you're just starting out or considering your next move, you'll find honest stories from people who've taken different paths into tech.
Featured reads:
- Gabbie Johnson on 10 years working at AT in Design/UX
- Tom Armitage on moving from academia to industry (Data Analytics)
- Chris Rossell on software engineering without computer science experience
- A Data Scientist, Data Analyst and Digital Analyst walk into a coffee shop. How does the barista tell them apart?
Start exploring
If you're curious about life in product and tech at Autotrader, our Medium blog is a great place to start.
You'll find stories from engineers, product managers, designers and data specialists sharing what they're working on, what they've learned and the challenges they've overcome along the way.
Have a browse, see what resonates, and if you like what you find, take a look at our latest career opportunities too.
Browse our Medium blogs here →
View open product & tech roles →