Staff Software Engineer, Backend

Harvey; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 197,000 - 271,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Founding member of Toronto team

Hybrid work arrangement

Job summary

Harvey is seeking a Staff Backend Software Engineer to shape the foundation of our platform and build user-facing features for leading law firms and enterprise customers. You will own core backend infrastructure, including authentication, permissions, and notifications, while scaling the platform across multiple product lines.

You’ll move between deep platform thinking and hands-on product iteration, influencing security, reliability, and performance.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of backend-focused software engineering experience on platform/product teams.
• Experience shipping user-facing features with measurable impact.
• Strong knowledge of distributed systems, REST/gRPC APIs, databases, and scalable architectures.

Responsibilities

• Design and build foundational backend infrastructure including authentication, permissions, feature flagging, notifications, and docs integrations.
• Build and evolve Harvey’s internal platform, accelerating development across product lines.
• Lead development of enterprise-facing features like secure multi-party collaboration and admin controls.
• Maintain high standards for security, privacy, and reliability with sensitive legal data.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, AI, design, and GTM teams to deliver enterprise-ready experiences.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

REST APIs

RBAC

Feature flags

Security awareness

Cross-team collaboration

Education

BS/MS in CS

Job description

Why Harvey

At Harvey, we’re transforming how legal and professional services operate. By combining frontier agentic AI, an enterprise-grade platform, and deep domain expertise, we’re reshaping how critical knowledge work gets done for decades to come.

Why Harvey

At Harvey, we’re transforming how legal and professional services operate. By combining frontier agentic AI, an enterprise-grade platform, and deep domain expertise, we’re reshaping how critical knowledge work gets done for decades to come.

This is a rare chance to help build a generational company at a true inflection point. We have strong product-market fit and world-class investor support. We’re scaling fast and defining a new category in real time. The work is ambitious, the bar is high, and the opportunity for growth — personal, professional, and financial — is unmatched.

Our team moves fast, takes ownership, and is deeply committed to the mission — operating with intensity, staying close to our customers, and pushing each other for excellence. We live by three values: Decisiveness, Simplicity, and Job's Not Finished. We act quickly on clear judgment over perfect information, we believe simplicity is what scales, and we're never satisfied with where we are. If you want to do the best work of your career alongside people who share that drive, we'd love to build with you.

At Harvey, the future of professional services is being written today — and we’re just getting started.

Role Overview

As a Staff Backend Software Engineer at Harvey, you’ll play a pivotal role in shaping the foundation of our product platform while directly building user-facing features for some of the world’s leading law firms and enterprise customers. This team owns and operates the platform layer that enables secure, reliable, and flexible experiences for our customers including notifications, permissions and feature flag infrastructure. We also build enterprise-grade collaboration experiences for law firms.

You will design and own systems that not only serve as critical infrastructure for the rest of the company, but also directly impact how our users engage with Harvey’s AI-powered legal tools. This role is ideal for engineers who are excited by the opportunity to move between deep platform thinking and hands-on product iteration.

This role is based in Toronto, Canada. We use an in-person work model and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

What You’ll Do

• Design and build foundational backend infrastructure including authentication, permissions, feature flagging, notifications, and document management integrations
• Build and evolve Harvey’s internal product platform, accelerating development across multiple product lines and engineering teams
• Lead development of enterprise-facing features, such as secure multi-party collaboration, cross-organization workflows, and robust admin controls
• Maintain high standards for security, privacy, and system reliability, particularly in handling sensitive legal data
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, AI, design, and GTM teams to deliver delightful, enterprise-ready experiences

What You Have

• 10+ years (post-BS/MS) of backend-focused software engineering experience on platform and/or product-oriented teams
• Experience working across the stack to ship user-facing features with measurable impact
• Strong knowledge of distributed systems, REST/gRPC APIs, databases, and scalable service architectures
• Familiarity with or interest in enterprise SaaS patterns, such as role-based access control (RBAC), feature flag systems, and third-party integrations
• Track record of shipping highly intuitive products, strong attention to detail
• Experience building backend platforms that can support multiple product lines
• Strong programming skills and general Computer Science knowledge

What We Offer

• Be part of building something special as a founding member of our Toronto team
• Structured hybrid working arrangement: 3 days in our Toronto office, 2 days working from home

Additional Information

• Location: Toronto, Ontario (Hybrid with flexibility)
• Work eligibility: Must have valid Canadian work rights; Harvey does not currently offer visa sponsorship for this role

Compensation

CAD $196,800 - $270,600

We are an AI company and we use AI to improve all of our processes, including in the recruitment process. Whilst we do use AI to help improve efficiency in our recruitment process, we do not rely on AI to make any automated decisions and ensure that a human reviews AI output.

Depending on your location, an Applicant Privacy Notice may apply to you. You can find all of our Applicant Privacy Notices [here].

Harvey is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related condition, or any other basis protected by law. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made by emailing [e-mail]