Senior Backend Engineer - Developer Productivity

Faire; Kitchener; Hybrid; CAD 156,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company is seeking a backend engineer to enhance developer productivity and streamline engineering workflows. This role focuses on building internal tools, improving reliability, and addressing pain points in development processes. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in back-end development and enthusiasm for automation and AI applications.

Benefits

Equity and benefits

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in back-end development (Java, Kotlin, or similar).
• Experience with CI/CD systems and cloud infrastructure.
• Interest in AI/LLMs and their applications.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain high-quality features for internal developer tooling.
• Identify pain points in engineering workflows.
• Enhance the reliability and speed of local development environments.

Skills

Back-end Development

Developer Experience

Automation

CI/CD Systems

Cloud Infrastructure

Tools

Bazel

GitHub Actions

Docker

AWS

Job description

Faire is an online wholesale marketplace built on the belief that the future is local — independent retailers around the globe are doing more revenue than Walmart and Amazon combined, but individually, they are small compared to these massive entities. At Faire, we're using the power of tech, data, and machine learning to connect this thriving community of entrepreneurs across the globe. Picture your favorite boutique in town — we help them discover the best products from around the world to sell in their stores. With the right tools and insights, we believe that we can level the playing field so that small businesses everywhere can compete with these big box and e-commerce giants.

By supporting the growth of independent businesses, Faire is driving positive economic impact in local communities, globally. We’re looking for smart, resourceful and passionate people to join us as we power the shop local movement. If you believe in community, come join ours.

About the role:

Imagine a world where every engineer at Faire can ship code faster, deploy confidently, and test seamlessly—because of the tools you build. Our Developer Productivity team makes that vision a reality, and we're looking for a backend engineer to help take it even further.

In this role, you will directly lead initiatives that streamline our engineers development lifecycle. Your work will remove bottlenecks, improve reliability, and enable engineers across Faire to build at incredible speed.

What you’ll do

• Build and maintain high-quality features for internal developer tooling.
• Identify pain points in engineering workflows and design both immediate fixes and long-term improvements.
• Experiment with LLMs and AI-powered automation to redefine how engineers write, test, and deploy code.
• Enhance the reliability and speed of local development environments, CI/CD pipelines, and automation frameworks.
• Contribute to the platform roadmap, using data-driven insights to set priorities and measure impact.

What we’re looking for:

• 5+ years of experience in back-end development (Java, Kotlin, or similar).
• Passion for developer experience, tooling, and automation.
• Interest in AI/LLMs and their applications in developer productivity.
• Experience with Bazel build system
• Strong understanding of CI/CD systems and cloud infrastructure (GitHub Actions, Buildkite, Docker, AWS, OCI, or similar).
• Ability to collaborate across teams, solve complex engineering problems, and drive efficiency.
• Curiosity and enthusiasm for exploring new tools and technologies to enhance development workflows.
• Bonus point for experience working with monorepos and large-scale codebase management.

Salary range:

Canada: the pay range for this role is $156,000 - $195,000 per year.

This role will also be eligible for equity and benefits. Actual base pay will be determined based on permissible factors such as transferable skills, work experience, market demands, and primary work location. The base pay range provided is subject to change and may be modified in the future.

Effective January 2025, Faire employees will be expected to go into the office 2 days per week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Additionally, hybrid in-office roles will have the flexibility to work remotely up to 4 weeks per year. Specific Workplace and Information Technology positions may require onsite attendance 5 days per week as will be indicated in the job posting.

Applications for this position will be accepted for a minimum of 30 days from the posting date.

Why you’ll love working at Faire

• We are entrepreneurs: Faire is being built for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. We believe entrepreneurship is a calling and our mission is to empower entrepreneurs to chase their dreams. Every member of our team is taking part in the founding process.
• We are using technology and data to level the playing field: We are leveraging the power of product innovation and machine learning to connect brands and boutiques from all over the world, building a growing community of more than 350,000 small business owners.
• We build products our customers love: Everything we do is ultimately in the service of helping our customers grow their business because our goal is to grow the pie - not steal a piece from it. Running a small business is hard work, but using Faire makes it easy.
• We are curious and resourceful: Inquisitive by default, we explore every possibility, test every assumption, and develop creative solutions to the challenges at hand. We lead with curiosity and data in our decision making, and reason from a first principles mentality.

Faire was founded in 2017 by a team of early product and engineering leads from Square. We’re backed by some of the top investors in retail and tech including: Y Combinator, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Forerunner Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, and DST Global. We have headquarters in San Francisco and Kitchener-Waterloo, and a global employee presence across offices in Toronto, London, and New York. To learn more about Faire and our customers, you can read more on our blog .

Faire provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

Faire is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. Accommodations are available throughout the recruitment process and applicants with a disability may request to be accommodated throughout the recruitment process. We will work with all applicants to accommodate their individual accessibility needs. To request reasonable accommodation, please fill out our Accommodation Request Form (https://bit.ly/faire-form)

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Canada Demographic Questions

We believe the future is local. At the core of that future are our customers, a diverse and unique community of entrepreneurs who have taken a chance on themselves. We’re inspired by these dreamers who work today and every day for a better future for their communities. We are committed to building a community and sense of belonging here at Faire that reflects the customers we serve. We want to ensure that we hold ourselves to that commitment externally and internally because differences in perspectives, experiences, and ideas are what make us successful.

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