Senior Software Engineer, Product Data Platform

Brex; Vancouver; Hybrid; CAD 266,000 - 333,000; Full time

Job summary

Brex’s Vancouver office is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join the Product Data Platform (PDP) team. You will work on high-performance, data-intensive backend systems, contributing to architectural improvements and scalable services that power Brex product experiences.

You’ll lead latency and reliability optimizations, build AI-enabled data products, and collaborate with software, data, security, and IT teams to deliver robust infrastructure.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of backend engineering experience building and operating production systems at scale.
• Experience building platforms or infrastructure used by real customers.
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate cross-functionally.
• Deep hands-on experience with relational databases (Postgres or Aurora strongly preferred)
• Strong expertise in query plan design and analysis, indexing strategies, and real-world database optimization.

Responsibilities

• Analyze and optimize complex query plans, execution paths, cost models, joins, and indexing strategies.
• Drive schema and access-pattern improvements to resolve systemic performance bottlenecks.
• Debug and remediate P95/P99 latency issues under load in production systems.
• Design and operate distributed systems with thoughtful tradeoffs around consistency, latency, caching, and failure modes.
• Evaluate existing architectures to proactively identify scaling risks and long-term reliability gaps.
• Implement and improve caching strategies, read/write separation, and replica usage.
• Contribute to and improve backend systems primarily in the JVM ecosystem (Kotlin/Java).
• Raise the technical bar through thoughtful design reviews and clear communication of tradeoffs.

Skills

Backend engineering

Production systems

Relational databases

Query design

Java/Kotlin

Communication

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

OpenSearch/Elasticsearch

Job description

Why join us

Brex is the AI-powered spend platform. We help companies spend with confidence with integrated corporate cards, banking, and global payments, plus intuitive software for travel and expenses. Tens of thousands of companies from startups to enterprises — including DoorDash, Flexport, and Compass — use Brex to proactively control spend, reduce costs, and increase efficiency on a global scale.

Working at Brex allows you to push your limits, challenge the status quo, and collaborate with some of the brightest minds in the industry. We’re committed to building a diverse team and inclusive culture and believe your potential should only be limited by how big you can dream. We make this a reality by empowering you with the tools, resources, and support you need to grow your career.

Engineering at Brex

Engineering at Brex is about building systems that scale with speed and intention. Our teams span Software, Data, Security, and IT, and operate with high autonomy and deep collaboration. We tackle hard technical problems, own our outcomes, and push for excellence at every level — from architecture to deployment. It’s an environment where engineering is a craft, and builders become leaders.

Where you’ll work

This role will be based in our Vancouver Office. We are a hybrid environment that combines the energy and connections of being in the office with the benefits and flexibility of working from home. We currently require a minimum of three coordinated days in the office per week, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

As a perk, we also have up to four weeks per year of fully remote work!

What you’ll do

This opportunity is on our Product Data Platform (PDP) team, which builds and operates the high-performance data, query, and search infrastructure that powers critical Brex product experiences. PDP’s mission is to make Brex customizable, scalable, and reliable for finance teams, and that requires deeply optimized, production-grade backend systems.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll work on data-intensive, distributed systems at scale. You’ll lead architectural and performance improvements across the platform, driving better latency, correctness, and scalability across multiple product surfaces. PDP also builds AI-powered data products, including an agentic reporting experience that enables customers to interact with their financial data in dynamic, intelligent ways. Your work ensures these systems are fast, reliable, and built to scale.

Responsibilities

• Analyze and optimize complex query plans, execution paths, cost models, joins, and indexing strategies.
• Drive schema and access-pattern improvements to resolve systemic performance bottlenecks.
• Debug and remediate P95/P99 latency issues under load in production systems.
• Design and operate distributed systems with thoughtful tradeoffs around consistency, latency, caching, and failure modes.
• Evaluate existing architectures to proactively identify scaling risks and long-term reliability gaps.
• Implement and improve caching strategies, read/write separation, and replica usage.
• Contribute to and improve backend systems primarily in the JVM ecosystem (Kotlin/Java).
• Raise the technical bar through thoughtful design reviews and clear communication of tradeoffs.

Requirements

• 7+ years of backend engineering experience building and operating production systems at scale.
• Experience building platforms or infrastructure used by real customers.
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate cross-functionally.
• Deep hands‑on experience with relational databases (Postgres or Aurora strongly preferred)
• Strong expertise in query plan design and analysis, indexing strategies, and real‑world database optimization.

Bonus

• Hands‑on experience with OpenSearch / Elasticsearch or similar systems in production
• Experience with multi‑tenant or data‑heavy platforms.

Compensation

• The expected salary range for this role is $192,000 - $240,000 + equity. However, the starting base pay will depend on a number of factors including the candidate’s location, skills, experience, market demands, and internal pay parity.

Important Note

Please be aware, job‑seekers may be at risk of targeting by malicious actors looking for personal data. Brex recruiters will only reach out via LinkedIn or email with a brex.com domain. Any outreach claiming to be from Brex via other sources should be ignored.