About the role

Douglas Online Technologies Canada is hiring one Senior Backend Engineer / Technical Lead to guide the backend of a production online platform. This is one combined hands-on leadership role: the successful candidate will design and build backend systems while setting engineering standards, reviewing work, mentoring a small team, and helping hire additional developers.

Job scope

You will own the technical direction of a TypeScript backend deployed to Cloudflare Workers, with REST/JSON route handlers, secure signed-cookie authentication, authorization rules, SQLite/D1 persistence, Drizzle-managed schema changes, R2 object storage, managed video integrations, scheduled retention work, and web, Android, and iOS clients that must remain API-compatible. The role includes architecture, delivery, production reliability, security review, documentation, and people leadership.

Responsibilities

- Lead backend architecture and remain hands-on in production TypeScript, SQL, API, security, and infrastructure work.
- Turn product requirements into bounded technical plans, review designs and pull requests, and make practical trade-offs across delivery speed, reliability, and maintainability.
- Own REST/JSON contracts used by React, native Android, and iOS clients; coordinate compatible changes and prevent client regressions.
- Maintain secure authentication, session cookies, password hashing, authorization, privacy decisions, request validation, and protected-media access controls.
- Design and review SQLite/D1 schemas, indexes, migrations, retention jobs, ranking queries, idempotent event ingestion, and production data fixes.
- Operate Cloudflare Workers and related services, including D1, R2, scheduled jobs, managed media callbacks, HMAC-verified webhooks, configuration, secrets, and observability.
- Define test, release,



documentation, incident response, and CI/CD expectations; investigate production issues through logs, traces, data, and reproducible tests.
- Mentor two to four developers through pairing, feedback, code review, technical planning, and clear ownership boundaries.
- Participate directly in interviewing and hiring, including role calibration, technical interviews, candidate evaluation, and onboarding plans.
- Communicate risks and decisions clearly to non-specialist stakeholders without hiding important technical constraints.

Required qualifications

- At least 6 years of professional backend or full-stack software development experience.
- At least 3 years building production backend services with TypeScript and Node.js tooling or a closely comparable JavaScript runtime.
- At least 2 years leading or formally mentoring software developers while remaining hands-on in code.
- Demonstrated interviewing and hiring experience for software engineering roles.
- Solid TypeScript, JavaScript, SQL, REST/JSON, Web API, asynchronous programming, and production-debugging skills.
- Production experience with Cloudflare Workers or a comparable serverless/edge platform, plus relational database design and safe migrations.
- Experience implementing authentication, signed sessions, authorization, input validation, privacy boundaries, secrets handling, and secure webhook processing.
- Experience with automated testing, CI/CD, observability,



incident response, and structured code review.
- Ability to review React integrations and coordinate API compatibility with Kotlin/Android and Swift/iOS developers.
- Ability to work on-site in Toronto, Ontario on the regular schedule described below.

Preferred qualifications

- Cloudflare D1, R2, Workers, Wrangler, Vite, Next.js route handlers, Vinext, or Drizzle ORM experience.
- Experience with object storage, direct uploads, HLS/DASH playback contracts, captions, media-provider webhooks, or content-retention systems.
- Experience with event aggregation, ranking or recommendation queries, bounded pagination, or privacy-preserving analytics.
- Experience leading a small cross-platform team through production releases for web and mobile clients.

What success looks like

- Backend changes are secure, documented, tested, observable, and compatible across web, Android, and iOS.
- The team ships in smaller, reviewable increments with clear decisions, dependable ownership, and fewer production regressions.
- Hiring and mentoring improve the team's technical depth without turning the lead role into a management-only position.

Work arrangement and compensation

This is a full-time, permanent, on-site position in Toronto, Ontario. The expected base salary is $150,000-$185,000 CAD per year, depending on directly relevant experience, demonstrated scope, and the final responsibilities assigned. The role is expected to work 40 hours per week, primarily Monday through Friday, with occasional planned support for releases or production incidents.

Pay: $140,000.00-$185,000.00 per year

Experience:

- Back-end development: 5 years (preferred)
- TypeScript: 3 years (preferred)
- Leadership: 2 years (preferred)

Work Location: In person

📌 Senior Backend Engineer (Canada)
🏢 Douglas Online Technologies Canada
📍 Canada