Engineering Manager

Blue J; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 160,000 - 195,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive base salary

Stock options

Remote-friendly with Toronto travel

Collaborative team culture

Job summary

Blue J, a Toronto-based AI-driven tax software company, is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead the Content Platform pillar. You will shape technical direction, coach engineers, and deliver high-quality distributed systems in a primarily remote setting with occasional Toronto visits.

You will partner with Product and Design to align priorities, manage teams of engineers, and drive architecture decisions across pods. This role offers stock options and a strong growth path.

Qualifications

• 7+ years hands-on experience designing and building heavily used SaaS products.
• 0-2 years directly managing teams of 4+ engineers; we’re looking for growth potential.
• Evidence of shaping innovative products and technical direction with Product and Design.
• Strong architectural foundation with end-to-end ownership of systems.
• Demonstrated ability to act as a senior IC when needed, and to communicate complex designs clearly.

Responsibilities

• Define goals and priorities with Product and Engineering leaders.
• Lead engineers to design and build foundational systems and internal tools.
• Coach engineers into strong system thinkers and leaders and improve engineering practices.

Skills

Leadership

Mentoring

Strategic planning

Architectural design

Communication

People management

Tools

Node.js

React

TypeScript

Python

AWS

Terraform

Kubernetes

Docker

GitHub

CircleCI

PostgreSQL

Elasticsearch

DynamoDB

S3

Kafka

NATS

Job description

About Blue J

Blue J is the leading generative AI solution for tax professionals and one of Canada's fastest-growing AI companies. Headquartered in Toronto, we're a high-growth B2B SaaS company building industry-leading tax research software that helps accountants find accurate answers to complex tax questions with greater speed and confidence.

Backed by a $122M USD Series D funding round, we're scaling rapidly across North America and the UK while continuing to push the boundaries of what's possible with AI. By combining advanced technology with deep tax expertise, we empower tax professionals to work more efficiently, make better decisions, and deliver greater value to their clients.

A Note on Location

Primarily remote, but you must live within driving distance of our Toronto office. You’ll join us in person for every quarterly and occasionally for team get-togethers (typically 1–3 visits per quarter).

To help you get off to a great start, we bring all new team members together for their first three days of onboarding. If you’re based outside of our local commuting area, Blue J will arrange and cover your travel and accommodation.

The Opportunity

Blue J’s Content Pillar team builds the systems that turn complex, varied source material into accurate, up-to-date content for our AI-powered tax products. Our work spans the entire data pipeline, from initial content ingestion, to near-realtime indexing, to retrieval by RAG algorithms, along with the tools that help our Legal Research team apply their domain expertise effectively.

We are looking for a new or aspiring Engineering Manager who combines strong software design fundamentals with a commitment to developing people. You will turn the pillar’s priorities into achievable team plans, coach engineers through challenging projects, and help them deliver reliable improvements in tiny increments. You will work with the pillar Director to clarify priorities and expectations, surface risks and constraints, and adjust plans as the team learns.

This is a technically engaged management role. You will build a working understanding of our architecture and codebase, contribute to design discussions and code reviews, and help engineers reason through distributed systems and data processing challenges. Your success will come through a team that delivers high quality results at speed, takes ownership of its systems, and continues to grow its expertise.

What You’ll Be Doing

Setting Direction

• Collaborating with Product and Engineering leaders to define goals and priorities
• Identifying and monitoring the key measures of success for our AI Content Platform
• Uncovering focus areas to advance our systems for ingesting, understanding, curating, indexing, and rendering content for near-real-time use in our AI product

Enabling High Quality Delivery

• Leading engineers to design and build foundational systems and internal tools, providing guidance through ambiguity, complexity, and difficult tradeoff decisions
• Ensuring projects stay on track and are communicated clearly to stakeholders
• Supporting teams in shipping frequently, safely, and with high confidence, consistent with Blue J’s engineering culture

Strengthening the Engineering Organization

• Coaching and developing engineers into strong system thinkers and leaders
• Improving engineering practices that support quality, lean iteration, strong testing, and healthy system design
• Hiring high performing engineers who raise the bar
• Creating clarity around ownership, mandates, interfaces, and platform boundaries across pods

What You Offer Blue J

• 7+ years of hands-on experience, including designing and building heavily used customer facing SaaS products.
• 0-2 years directly managing teams of 4+ engineers, ranging in experience from students to Senior+ level. We’re explicitly looking for someone new to this role who is keen to grow
• Evidence that you have helped shape innovative products and technical direction in partnership with Product and Design, bringing an entrepreneurial and creative mindset rather than simply delivering against an established roadmap
• Strong architectural foundation with experience owning complex systems end-to-end, including roadmap creation, system design, implementation, and long‑term evolution
• Demonstrated ability to operate as a senior level IC when needed, especially during early context‑building
• Clear communication skills with the ability to explain complex system designs to technical and non-technical audiences

Additional Experience That Would Be Valuable

• Experience working on data pipelines at scale, especially in combination with RAG systems
• Experience with ingestion systems that can handle heterogeneous data, both trusted and untrusted
• Experience with fault‑tolerant, resilient, event‑driven distributed systems
• Experience managing cross‑functional projects, including maintaining alignment and proactively communicating risk

Technologies You Can Expect To Work With

• Node.js, React, TypeScript, Python
• AWS, Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker, LaunchDarkly
• GitHub, CircleCI
• PostgreSQL, ElasticSearch, DynamoDB, S3
• Kafka, NATS, SNS/SQS

What We Offer You

• A meaningful leadership role influencing the platform foundations of a fast growing company
• A culture where quality, lean iteration, and thoughtful system design are core engineering principles
• An environment where your work directly accelerates innovation in a rapidly evolving market
• A mission-driven culture where your work directly advances clarity, efficiency, and accessibility in tax research.
• Competitive base salary, stock options, and benefits designed to support you and your family
• Flexibility in how you work: primarily remote, with occasional travel to our Toronto office and conferences as needed.
• A collaborative, ambitious, and supportive team that values innovation, respect, and fun
• The excitement of a fast-growing, well-funded company with clear momentum, and the resources to back bold initiatives

The Core Values that Define Our Culture

• We are customer-focused
• We put team over self
• We are pleasant and playful
• We are open to better ideas
• We move fast and fix things

What To Expect In The Interview Process

We anticipate a high volume of applicants for this role and are excited to grow our team. A human will review each application and get back to you as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience and look forward to connecting with you!

Interview Process

• Chat with Elli, our Talent Acquisition Manager
• Leadership interview with our Director of Engineering, Content Platform
• Technical deep dive with an Engineering team member
• System design exercise with our VP of Engineering, Mario
• Meet our CTO, Brett, and other members of the team
• Meet our CEO, Ben

We believe our strength is built on diversity of thought, and encourage candidates from all backgrounds and experiences to apply. We value inclusiveness and are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

We strive to create an inclusive and accessible hiring experience for all candidates. If you need any accommodations during the interview process, please let us know in your application. Our team is dedicated to providing the necessary support and making reasonable adjustments to ensure a smooth process for everyone.

How We Use AI In Our Hiring Process

To ensure transparency, we want candidates to know that Blue J uses AI-enabled tools within our applicant tracking system to help organize applications and highlight profiles that match the key requirements for each role. AI does not make hiring decisions. Every application is reviewed by a member of our Talent team, and all decisions throughout the process are made by humans. We use these tools to support efficiency and consistency, not to replace human judgment and we’re committed to a fair, thoughtful, and equitable experience for every candidate.

Compensation

The base pay range for this role is $160,000 - $195,000 CAD per year. This is a Level 4 in Blue J’s career level framework. We use levels to define the expected scope, autonomy, impact, decision‑making, and experience for each role. Final compensation will be set fairly and thoughtfully based on experience, expertise, and alignment with the role’s responsibilities. While all candidates are expected to bring directly relevant experience, the top of the range is typically reserved for individuals who demonstrate exceptional depth in the role’s core competencies, a strong track record of impact in similar environments, and the ability to operate with a high degree of autonomy from day one.