Principal Staff Software Engineer

Apexon; Toronto; On-site; CAD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Apexon is seeking a Staff/Principal Software Engineer with over a decade of experience to own and shape large-scale Java backend systems. You will design distributed architectures, implement microservices, and drive greenfield platform development using Java 21, Spring Boot, and REST APIs.

In this hands-on role, you will mentor engineers, lead architectural decisions, and collaborate across AWS services to deliver scalable, cloud-native platforms and AI-enabled solutions.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience.
• Strong hands-on AWS experience.
• Experience with distributed systems and cloud-native platforms.
• AI/ML platform or inference experience.
• Experience with AI-assisted development tools.
• Strong architecture, ownership, and mentoring experience.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop scalable distributed systems and microservices.
• Hands-on development with Java 21, Spring Boot, REST APIs.
• Lead system design, architecture, scalability, and technical decisions.
• Build 0-to-1/greenfield platforms with end-to-end ownership.
• Develop solutions for AI/ML platforms, feature pipelines, or inference services.
• Work with AWS across compute, storage, networking, and IAM.
• Use AI-assisted coding tools and mentor engineers.

Skills

Java

AWS

Distributed systems

Microservices

System design

AI/ML platforms

AI-assisted coding

Mentoring

Tools

GitHub Copilot

Claude

Cursor

Windsurf

Job description

Staff/Principal Software Engineer (Java)

About the Role

We are seeking a Staff/Principal Software Engineer with 10+ years of experience building production-grade distributed systems. This is a hands-on Java backend and system design role focused on architecture, scalable microservices, AWS, and greenfield platform development.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design and develop scalable distributed systems and microservices.
• Hands‑on development with Java 21, Spring Boot, REST APIs.
• Lead system design, architecture, scalability, and technical decisions.
• Build 0‑to‑1/greenfield platforms with end‑to‑end ownership.
• Develop solutions for AI/ML platforms, feature pipelines, or inference services.
• Work with AWS across compute, storage, networking, and IAM.
• Use AI‑assisted coding tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude, Cursor, or Windsurf.
• Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership.

Required Skills:

• 10+ years software engineering experience.
• Strong hands‑on AWS experience.
• Experience with distributed systems and cloud‑native platforms.
• AI/ML platform or inference experience.
• Experience with AI‑assisted development tools.
• Strong architecture, ownership, and mentoring experience.

Nice to Have:

• Databricks
• Python
• Edge/CDN: Cloudflare Workers, Lambda@Edge, Fastly, Akamai
• Observability, distributed tracing, and platform engineering.