Senior Application Development Technical Lead

First National Financial LP; Remote; CAD 100,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading non-bank lender in Canada is seeking a Senior Application Development Technical Lead. This role focuses on leading a cross-functional team through the entire development lifecycle, ensuring technical quality and scalability of applications. Candidates should have over 10 years of experience in application development, especially in mortgage systems. Strong technical, communication, and mentoring skills are essential. The position offers competitive compensation and a supportive virtual work environment.

Benefits

Competitive compensation

Comprehensive benefits program

Extensive training programs

Modern office environment

Supportive teamwork culture

Opportunities for community engagement

Qualifications

• Minimum 10+ years in application development.
• Minimum 10+ years leading technical teams.
• Working knowledge of UML for architecture modeling.
• Experience in the mortgage industry and systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead development from concept to implementation.
• Ensure alignment with modernization plans.
• Promote best practices and coding standards.
• Mentor team members effectively.

Skills

Verbal and written communication skills

Mentoring and guiding team members

Understanding of OOP concepts

Technical skills in legacy mortgage systems

Understanding of mortgage lifecycle

Advisory skills on technology decisions

Analysis/debugging skills

Presentation skills to various audiences

Organizational skills

Analytical and problem-solving capabilities

Education

Post-secondary education in Computer Science or related field

Tools

COBOL

DB2

Job description

The Opportunity

The Senior Application Development Technical Lead provides technical leadership to a cross-functional product team responsible for analyzing, developing, and implementing application changes and enhancements. The Senior Technical Lead ensures the technical quality, scalability, and maintainability of assigned applications while guiding development standards and supporting modernization initiatives. The Senior Technical Lead will provide mentoring and coaching to the other members on their team.

How you will contribute

• Lead application development efforts from concept through implementation.
• Participate actively in all phases of development, including research, design, coding, testing, and deployment.
• Provide high-level estimates and contribute to impact and risk assessments during early project stages.
• Ensure alignment with application modernization plans and architecture roadmaps.
• Promote best practices, coding standards, and design principles across the team.
• Provide coaching and mentoring to other members of the team.
• Ability to work with various stakeholders to gather consensus and make informed decisions.

The experience you need

Skills and Attributes

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to guide, mentor, and direct team members to build technical capabilities.
• Strong understanding of OOP concepts and frameworks.
• Strong technical skills and hands-on development and production support experience with legacy mortgage administration systems.
• Expert in understanding the mortgage lifecycle.
• Expertise in one or more technical domains with ability to advise on technology decisions.
• Strong analysis/debugging skills to help remove blockers for the team.
• Skilled at presenting technical topics to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to prioritize and multitask effectively.
• Proven analytical and problem-solving capabilities.

Education/Certification/Experience Requirements

• Post-secondary education in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.
• Minimum 10+ years of experience in application development.
• Minimum 10+ years leading developers or technical initiatives.
• Working knowledge of UML and other architecture modelling notations (class diagrams, sequence diagrams, use cases, etc.).
• Experience in the mortgage industry.
• Experience with Mortgage Administration Systems.
• Ability to quickly learn and adapt to new technologies.
• Ability to work both independently and in a team environment.
• COBOL, DB2.

Working Environment and Physical Demands

• Periods of high volume with tight timelines
• Long periods of stationary position/sitting
• Prolonged periods of repetitive movement (i.e. using a keyboard and mouse)
• Long periods of time viewing a computer screen
• Multi-tasking may include speaking to customers on a telephone call while looking up information on a computer program
• Competitive compensation
• Comprehensive benefits program (i.e., Health Spending Account, Maternity and Parental Leave Top Up)
• Virtual work environment
• Extensive training programs to set our employees up for success
• Modern office environment conducive to collaboration
• Supportive teamwork culture
• Opportunities to give back to the communities and work through events focused on a variety of charities
• Ongoing social events throughout the year

The team you’ll join

Founded in 1988, First National is one of Canada’s largest non-bank lenders. We provide residential mortgages exclusively through the mortgage broker channel and we are Canada’s largest commercial mortgage lender.

First National has been consistently recognized as a great place to work and we are proud that our employee engagement feedback is higher than our industry partners.

We would like to thank all applications for their interest in this existing vacancy but only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.

First National is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity and inclusion regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender identity, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation and any other category protected by law.

First National supports requests for accommodation from applicants with disabilities; please contact Human Resources at [e-mail] should you need an accommodation at any point in the recruitment process.

Artificial Intelligence is not used in our recruitment or hiring process for this role.