Korn Ferry has partnered with our client on their search for the role, Director, Mobile App Development.
The Company
Incorporated in 1997, Sonic Automotive (NYSE: SAH) is one of the nation’s largest automotive retailers, representing over 25 brands and more than 120 locations across the United States. With our rapidly growing EchoPark brand and a focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences, we are driving the future of automotive retail through innovation, data-driven decision-making, and customer engagement.
Investment Highlights
Our business strategy includes strategic approaches such as:
- Featuring a broad, geographic revenue stream and brand mix diversification
- Creating a complementary relationship between our operating segments
- Creating multiple growth and profit drivers for our franchise operations
- Being disciplined with capital allocation to accelerate EchoPark’s growth
- Maintaining a unique, high return business model for EchoPark
- Focusing on SG&A control and strengthening our balance sheet
Overview
Sonic Automotive is seeking a Director of Mobile Application Development to lead the strategy, development, launch, and long-term evolution of the EchoPark mobile application ecosystem.
This leader will be responsible for building a world-class consumer mobile experience across iOS and Android platforms while establishing the long-term technical, operational, and organizational foundation necessary to support future growth. The position represents a rare opportunity to build a flagship consumer application from the ground up and define the future mobile experience for one of the fastest-growing automotive retail brands in the United States.
The ideal candidate combines deep mobile engineering expertise with strong product, business, and customer experience acumen. They must understand how to deliver engaging, frictionless mobile experiences while balancing speed-to-market, technical scalability, maintainability, and long-term business objectives.
Key Responsibilities
Mobile Product & Technology Strategy
- Develop and execute the multi-year mobile application strategy for EchoPark.
- Establish a 3–6 quarter roadmap of mobile capabilities, features, enhancements, and customer engagement initiatives.
- Partner closely with Product, Marketing, Technology, Operations, and Executive Leadership to prioritize functionality and maximize business impact.
- Drive feature innovation while maintaining alignment with broader digital and eCommerce strategies.
Mobile Application Development Leadership
- Lead the design, architecture, development, deployment, and ongoing enhancement of native-like mobile experiences across iOS and Android platforms using Flutter.
- Oversee all phases of the mobile application lifecycle including planning, development, testing, deployment, monitoring, support, and continuous improvement.
- Ensure the application is scalable, secure, maintainable, and optimized for long-term growth.
- Serve as the organization’s subject matter expert for mobile development best practices, tooling, architecture, and operational excellence.
- Maintain hands-on technical credibility and provide guidance on architecture, engineering decisions, and development standards.
Vendor & Partner Management
- Lead and manage external development partners responsible for initial application development.
- Establish performance expectations, governance models, delivery standards, and quality metrics for vendor teams.
- Drive accountability for timelines, quality, user experience, and business outcomes.
- Develop a long-term strategy for transitioning from outsourced development to an internally supported engineering model.
Consumer Experience & Engagement
- Champion a customer-first approach to mobile product development.
- Utilize consumer behavior analytics, user research, and engagement metrics to optimize application performance and adoption.
- Ensure mobile experiences are intuitive, frictionless, and highly engaging.
- Partner with Marketing teams to drive customer acquisition, retention, loyalty, and engagement through the mobile channel.
Product Innovation
- Build and continuously enhance capabilities including:
- Vehicle search and shopping
- Digital retail experiences
- Appointment scheduling
- Service scheduling and management
- Customer loyalty programs
- Consumer engagement initiatives
- Finance and lending experiences
- Vehicle appraisal and trade-in functionality
- Vehicle valuation tools
- End-to-end transaction enablement
Organizational Development
- Help define the future mobile engineering organization structure.
- Identify internal capability requirements and hiring needs.
- Recruit, develop, and mentor future mobile engineering talent.
- Build a sustainable operating model supporting long-term product innovation and application maintenance.
The Candidate
Required Qualifications
- 10+ years of progressive software development experience.
- 5+ years leading mobile application development initiatives.
- Proven success delivering customer-facing mobile applications at scale.
- Real world Flutter development experience.
- Experience leading iOS and Android application development programs.
- Previous hands-on mobile engineering experience with the ability to engage deeply in technical discussions.
- Demonstrated experience managing outsourced development teams and technology vendors.
- Experience building and executing mobile product roadmaps.
- Strong understanding of application lifecycle management, DevOps, release management, production support, and incident response.
- Experience partnering with Product, Marketing, UX, and Executive stakeholders.
- Strong communication and stakeholder management capabilities.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with consumer-facing retail, eCommerce, marketplace, financial services, insurance, travel, hospitality, or automotive applications.
- Experience developing customer loyalty and engagement platforms.
- Experience scaling greenfield products into enterprise-grade applications.
- Familiarity with mobile analytics, customer behavior analysis, and personalization technologies.
- Automotive retail experience is beneficial but not required.
SE: 510795393