Staff Back End Engineer (Applications)

Forma.ai; Toronto; On-site; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Employee stock ownership plan

Full benefits package

$750 yearly training stipend

Job summary

A tech startup in Toronto is seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to lead the development of complex backend systems. The role involves designing backend services, mentoring engineers, and driving architectural decisions in a collaborative environment. Candidates should have significant experience with backend languages and strong data modeling skills. The company offers meaningful compensation, healthcare coverage, and opportunities for growth in a supportive culture.

Qualifications

• Significant experience designing and building complex backend systems.
• Demonstrated ability to surface architectural risks and propose improvements.
• Expertise in at least one production-grade backend language.

Responsibilities

• Lead development efforts for complex backend capabilities.
• Design and evolve backend services that power product workflows.
• Drive architectural decisions balancing extensibility, performance, and simplicity.

Skills

Backend systems design

Data modeling

SQL

Python

Java

Go

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Job description

Forma.ai is a Series B startup that's revolutionizing how sales compensation is designed, managed and optimized. We handle billions in annual managed commissions for market leaders like Edmentum, Stryker, and Autodesk.

Our growth has been fuelled by our passion for fundamentally changing and shaping how companies use sales intelligence to drive business strategy.

We’re welcoming equally driven individuals who are excited about creating something big!

The Team:

We build enterprise software that helps organizations optimize sales performance, enabling go-to-market agility. Our engineering organization includes multiple product application teams responsible for delivering core customer-facing capabilities. We are seeking Staff Backend Engineers to join our application teams. You’ll work alongside other staff, senior, and early-career engineers to define, evolve, and scale the systems that power enterprise-grade product workflows. This is an opportunity to influence both technical direction and product direction. We are low on meetings, high on accountability. Most of the team are in EST time zone but we have a few located in AST, PST and Central as well.

The Role:

You will play a critical role in the continued evolution of our application stack. You will lead development efforts for complex backend capabilities and serve as a technical example in system design, code quality, and long-term maintainability. You’ll operate at the intersection of data modelling, business logic, and enterprise scale reliability.

As a Staff Engineer, you are expected to operate with a high degree of ownership and trust. This includes proactively identifying architectural risks, surfacing edge cases or constraints others may not see, and advocating for improvements that strengthen the long-term integrity of the system. We value engineers who bring forward thoughtful perspectives – even when they challenge assumptions – and who help the team see around corners.

What you’ll do:

• Design and evolve backend services that power product workflows.
• Architect data models representing hierarchical & graph structures, relationships, and large-scale enterprise datasets.
• Build deterministic, reliable systems that allow customers to reason clearly about their data.
• Drive architectural decisions that balance extensibility, performance, and operational simplicity.
• Improve observability, testing strategy, and production reliability across backend services.
• Partner closely with Product to translate nuanced business requirements into clean, scalable designs.
• Mentor engineers across levels and help raise the bar for backend engineering standards.
• Use, and demonstrate using, AI tooling to improve implementation velocity while thoughtfully investing in technical and product specifications

What We’re Looking for:

• Significant experience designing and building complex backend systems in production environments.
• Demonstrated ability to surface unarticulated risks, propose alternative approaches, and advocate for architectural improvements with sound technical reasoning.
• Expertise in at least one production-grade backend language (e.g., Python, Java, Kotlin, Go, C#, etc.).
• Strong foundation in relational schema design, data modelling, and SQL.
• Experience working with hierarchical, graph-like, or relationship-heavy data structures.
• Familiarity with graph databases or graph-based modelling concepts is a strong plus.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• A track record of improving scalability, reliability, and observability in distributed or data-intensive systems.
• A desire to influence architecture and product direction – not just implement tickets.
• Thrive in a collaborative, detail-oriented environment across Engineering, Product, and Analytics.

Bonus Points for:

• Experience building SaaS products serving mid-market or enterprise customers.
• Experience building rule-driven systems, validation workflows, or approval/governance platforms.
• Familiarity with AWS-based infrastructure and Kubernetes.
• Exposure to Sales Performance Management (SPM), RevOps, Incentive Compensation (ICM), or related domains.

Additional Job Info:

• This position is for an existing vacancy

What you can expect from us:

• Meaningful compensation. In addition to your base salary, you’ll join our employee stock ownership plan to further recognize your contributions to Forma.ai’s success
• Healthcare coverage. We have a full benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance, and a paid parental leave program
• Learning and development. Access the resources you want to help you grow in your role by utilizing our $750 yearly training stipend
• Growth. You’ll have a huge opportunity to build a career for yourself and gain the type of experience you’re looking for – whether that’s as an individual contributor or as a people leader

Our Values:

• Work well, together. We’re real. We have kids and pets. Mortgages and student loans. We’re in this together, so no matter how brilliant any one of us is, we always play nice with one another – no exceptions.
• Be precise. Be relentless. We believe complacency breeds failure, so we set new goals as quickly as we achieve them. We persist in the face of adversity, learn from our mistakes, and push each other to continuously improve. The status-quo is kryptonite.
• Love our tech. Love our customers. Our platform solves a very complex problem in a currently underserved market. While everyone at Forma isn’t customer-facing, we’re all customer-focused. Maybe even slightly customer-obsessed.

Use of AI for Recruitment

Currently, Forma.ai does not use artificial intelligence as part of our recruitment process, specifically but not limited to the screening, filtering and shortlisting of applicants.

Our commitment to you:

Forma is a proud equal opportunity employer that is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive work environment.Every effort to accommodate candidates for accessibility will be made upon request. Information received related to accommodations will be addressed confidentially. We know that applying to a new role takes a lot of effort. You're encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't precisely match the job description. There are many paths to a successful career and we’re looking forward to reading yours.