Senior Backend Software Engineer II, Orchestration

dbt Labs; Remote; CAD 190,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading analytics engineering firm in Canada is seeking an experienced backend engineer to design and implement reliable services. The ideal candidate has 8+ years of experience, strong programming skills in Python, Rust, and Go, and a passion for engineering best practices. This role offers competitive compensation, equity options, and benefits such as unlimited vacation and excellent healthcare. Join a dynamic team dedicated to driving innovation in data transformations.

Benefits

Unlimited vacation

Excellent healthcare and wellness stipend

Home office stipend

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience as a software engineer.
• Strong knowledge of observability and debugging production issues at scale.
• Systematic problem-solving approach, strong communication skills.
• Experience working asynchronously on a fully-remote, distributed team.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement reliable, secure, highly available services.
• Work on complex systems using various programming languages.
• Collaborate across multiple engineering teams and customer support.
• Act as a mentor to junior engineers.

Skills

Backend engineering

Python

Rust

Go

Postgres

Redis

Kubernetes

AWS

Terraform

Datadog

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, or related field

Job description

About Us

dbt Labs is the pioneer of analytics engineering, helping data teams transform raw data into reliable, actionable insights. Since 2016, we’ve grown from an open source project into the leading analytics engineering platform, now used by over 50,000 teams every week. As of February 2025, we’ve surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and serve more than 5,400 dbt Cloud customers, including JetBlue, HubSpot, Vodafone New Zealand, and Dunelm. We’re backed by top‑tier investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Altimeter.

We believe in empowering data practitioners through code‑based data transformations, modern software engineering practices, open‑source infrastructure, and community‑driven analytic code.

Role Overview

The Orchestration team owns and operates critical services that power job scheduling and execution for dbt Cloud. We are evolving our product and system while operating at scale, meeting strict uptime requirements, and satisfying the needs of large enterprises. We are seeking an experienced backend engineer to help shape our architecture and drive our ambitious roadmap.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement reliable, secure, highly available services and refactor legacy systems in collaboration with the staff+ engineering group.
• Work on complex systems using Python, Rust, Go, Postgres, Redis, Kubernetes, AWS, Terraform, and Datadog.
• Collaborate across multiple engineering teams, product management, UX designers, and customer support.
• Act as a mentor to junior engineers, guiding best‑practice and architectural decisions.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience as a software engineer.
• Strong knowledge of observability and debugging production issues at scale.
• Systematic problem‑solving approach, strong communication skills, sense of ownership and drive.
• Passion for upholding engineering best practices in all phases of the SDLC.
• Self‑starter who can lead a group of engineers from inception to implementation.
• Experience working asynchronously on a fully‑remote, distributed team (edge).
• Background in data analytics and transformation (edge).

Necessary Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, or a related field.

Compensation

We offer competitive compensation packages commensurate with experience, including salary, equity, and performance‑based pay. In select locations (Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York Metro, San Francisco, DC Metro, Seattle, Austin), an alternate range may apply.

• The typical starting salary range for this role is: $190,000 - $230,000 CAD.

Equity Stake

Equity or comparable benefits may be offered depending on legal limitations.

Benefits

• Unlimited vacation.
• Excellent healthcare and wellness stipend.
• Home office stipend and more.

Hiring Process

• Interview with a Talent Acquisition Partner (30 min).
• Technical interview with Hiring Manager (60 min).
• Team technical interviews – 3 rounds, 45 min each.
• Final leadership interview (30 min).

Equal Opportunity Employer

dbt Labs is an equal opportunity employer, committed to building an inclusive team that welcomes diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. Even if your experience doesn’t perfectly align with the job description, we encourage you to apply—we value potential just as much as a perfect resume.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Learn more about our focus on DEI on the dbt Labs DEI page.