Staff Software Engineer (Backend)

Location: Remote within Canada (Toronto preferred)

Reports to: Senior Director of Engineering

About the Role

The Staff Software Engineer is a hands-on technical leader responsible for building, optimizing, and maintaining the core backend systems that power a real-time digital marketplace platform. This role is highly execution-focused and sits at the intersection of backend engineering, system performance, and business-critical operations. The successful candidate will spend the majority of their time writing code, debugging production issues, and improving system performance, while also contributing to technical decision-making and mentoring other engineers. This is not an architecture-only or management role. It is a deeply hands-on position focused on solving complex technical problems in a high-scale, real-time environment. This individual will play a key role in maintaining system reliability, supporting production operations, and ensuring the platform can scale effectively as the business grows.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement backend systems and features using Java and Spring Boot
• Own and resolve complex production issues, including leading root cause analysis and implementing long-term fixes
• Profile and optimize application performance across code, database queries, and infrastructure
• Monitor system health and proactively address scalability and reliability concerns
• Work closely with product and business stakeholders to translate requirements into technical solutions
• Lead technical problem-solving efforts within the team and support other engineers in debugging and implementation
• Contribute to code quality, best practices, and engineering standards through code reviews and mentorship
• Collaborate across teams to support integrations and ensure seamless system interactions
• Participate in technical planning, estimation, and delivery of key initiatives

Success in This Role Looks Like

• Production issues are resolved quickly with clear root cause analysis and long-term fixes
• System performance improves, with reduced latency and fewer bottlenecks
• Backend systems scale reliably under increased load and real-time demand
• Strong technical contribution across the team, with improved code quality and engineering practices
• Effective collaboration with business stakeholders, with clear translation of requirements into solutions
• Increased team capacity to handle complex technical challenges and production support

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional software development experience
• Strong backend development experience with Java (Spring / Spring Boot)
• Proven experience working on high-scale, high-concurrency, or real-time systems
• Demonstrated ability to debug complex production issues and perform root cause analysis
• Experience optimizing system performance, including database queries and application-level bottlenecks
• Strong understanding of system design and backend architecture patterns
• Experience owning features end-to-end, from design through deployment and support
• Ability to work cross-functionally and communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Experience working in North American product environments is strongly preferred

Required Skills

• Core Stack: Java / Kotlin, Spring / Spring Boot, GraphQL, MySQL / SQL, Elasticsearch, AWS

Preferred Skills

• CI/CD pipelines (Maven, Git)
• Frontend exposure (React, TypeScript, or similar)
• Infrastructure as code or cloud platform experience (nice to have)

Pay range and compensation package

Base Salary: CAD $170,000 – $190,000

Performance Bonus: ~10% of base

Benefits: Extended health & dental, RRSP matching, flexible PTO

Total Compensation: Competitive and aligned with experience and impact