Head of Backend

About this role

ABOUT THE ROLE

A fast-growing productivity SaaS startup is looking for a Head of Backend to lead and scale its backend engineering function. You'll join a small, highly capable development team and play a pivotal role in consolidating a microservices architecture, driving performance and reliability improvements, and powering new product growth through well-crafted APIs and integrations.

This is a hands-on leadership role — you'll both shape engineering direction and write production code every day.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

- Expand, consolidate, and scale a microservices backend architecture for a high-growth product.

- Improve overall backend performance, reliability, and security posture.

- Design and develop new REST APIs for both internal and external consumers.

- Build and maintain integrations with third-party services and external APIs.

- Create internal tooling to streamline development and operations workflows.

- Define and contribute to software lifecycle processes and engineering best practices.

- Proactively propose innovative features and backend solutions aligned with product goals.

- Occasionally engage directly with customers to triage and reproduce bugs.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

Required skills & experience:

- 11+ years of professional backend development experience (minimum 6 years considered for exceptional profiles).

- Strong hands-on proficiency in Go and Node.js; PHP familiarity is a bonus.

- Proven experience building and consuming REST APIs with OAuth2 authentication.

- Deep experience with distributed systems and microservices architecture.

- Solid knowledge of PostgreSQL or other relational databases and caching systems.

- Proficiency with Unix-based systems, Docker, and Kubernetes.

- Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, or equivalent).

- Experience scaling infrastructure and implementing monitoring and logging solutions.

- Strong fundamentals in algorithms, data structures, and software design.

- Proficient with Git version control.

- Strong spoken and written English communication skills.

Nice to have:

- Experience with third-party and external API integrations.

- Security hardening background for backend services.

- Experience building developer-facing internal tools.

The ideal candidate is: a collaborative, security-conscious engineer-leader who sweats the details, cares about user experience at the API level, and brings a flexible, can-do mindset to a small team environment.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

- Salary: $80,000 – $120,000 USD annually, depending on experience.

- Opportunity to shape backend architecture at a critical growth stage (Series A/B equivalent).

- Small team with high ownership and direct product impact.

Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.

LOCATION

This is an on-site position based in Canada. Candidates must be eligible to work in Canada without visa sponsorship.

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