Backend Engineer (Ruby on Rails, Microservices)

WorkAxle; Montreal (administrative region); On-site; CAD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

WorkAxle is seeking a Backend Software Engineer with strong Ruby/Rails expertise to join a growing team in Montreal. You’ll work on the core monolith and new microservices, collaborating with Scheduling and Time & Attendance squads to deliver scalable, robust workforce-management software.

You’ll design and implement distributed services, migrate business logic from the monolith, and adopt gRPC and RabbitMQ, applying domain-driven design and modern Ruby tooling to drive reliability and

Qualifications

• Strong experience with Ruby and Rails frameworks.
• Proficient in PostgreSQL data modeling and SQL.
• Experience building distributed, scalable services.
• Familiar with REST and JSON:API; gRPC is a plus.
• Experience with TDD/BDD testing culture.
• Domain-driven design mindset and clear code organization.
• Background job processing experience (e.g., sidekiq) is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Work on both the core Ruby on Rails monolith and new microservices (Nest.js).
• Collaborate with Scheduling and Time & Attendance teams to deliver solutions.
• Design, build, maintain, and scale distributed systems; migrate logic from monolith.
• Develop and integrate services using gRPC and RabbitMQ.
• Apply domain-driven thinking to structure codebases.
• Leverage Ruby gems and patterns from the dry-rb stack.
• Contribute to architectural discussions and evolve the system design.

Skills

Ruby on Rails

PostgreSQL

Distributed systems

REST / JSON:API

TDD / BDD

Domain-driven design

gRPC

RabbitMQ

Nest.js

Temporal

Hanami

dry-rb

Tools

Nest.js

gRPC

RabbitMQ

Temporal

dry-rb

Hanami

Job description

Only candidates based in the province of Quebec will be considered for this role.

Join a fast-growing, dynamic team shaping the future of workforce management software.

WorkAxle is looking for a talented and driven Backend Software Engineer with strong expertise in Ruby and Ruby on Rails to join our innovative and fast-paced team. As we continue to expand and modernize our workforce management platform, we're seeking someone passionate about building robust solutions — someone who thrives in a collaborative environment and is excited to both enhance existing applications and create new microservices to support our growth.

How We Work

We favor microservices over monoliths. Our stack includes a core Ruby service, multiple Nest.js services, and a standalone React frontend. This domain-driven separation accelerates development cycles and enhances team autonomy by avoiding large, tightly coupled releases.

What you’ll do

• Work on both our core Ruby on Rails monolith and new microservices (primarily Nest.js ).
• Work closely with product and engineering teammates in the Scheduling or Time & Attendance teams to deliver impactful solutions.
• Design, build, maintain, and scale robust distributed systems, including migrating business logic from the monolith.
• Develop and integrate services using gRPC and RabbitMQ.
• Apply domain-oriented thinking to architect and organize codebases.
• Leverage advanced Ruby gems and patterns, including from the dry-rb stack (e.g., dry-validation, dry-monads).
• Contribute to technical discussions and help shape our evolving architecture.

What we’re looking for Must-Have:

• Strong experience with Ruby and Ruby on Rails.
• Strong experience with PostgreSQL and data modeling.
• Comfort working beyond standard Rails conventions and a willingness to learn/use advanced patterns and gems (e.g., dry-rb stack, alternative architectural styles like Hanami).
• Experience building robust, scalable distributed systems.
• Experience with large-scale, high-availability systems.
• Domain-driven design mindset.
• Familiarity with background job processing.
• Experience building and consuming APIs (REST, JSON:API; gRPC is a plus).
• Proficiency with testing frameworks and TDD/BDD practices (strong testing culture).

Nice-to-Have:

• Experience with Node.js, especially Nest.js.
• Familiarity with Go (Golang).
• Hands-on experience with gRPC and RabbitMQ.
• Experience with Temporal or similar workflow orchestration tools – we're open to adopting such technologies to improve system reliability and streamline development of complex workflows.
• Experience with microservices migration projects.
• Experience with DevOps, CI/CD, and monitoring tools is a plus.

Who should apply

• You enjoy the challenge of evolving legacy systems while building modern microservices.
• You're not dogmatic about frameworks and prioritize choosing the right tool for the job.
• You value clean, maintainable, and well-architected code following domain-driven principles.
• You want to directly improve the daily scheduling and time tracking experience for thousands of users.

Bonus points

• Experience with the dry-rb ecosystem or Hanami.
• Prior work on high-scale, event-driven architectures.
• Contributions to open-source Ruby or Node.js projects.