[Hiring] Senior Back End Developer @CoLab Software

Role Description

We're looking for a Senior Backend Developer to join our Build Operator team. Operator isn't a chatbot bolted onto our product. It's becoming the intelligence layer across CoLab, helping engineering teams search company knowledge, surface design decisions, answer complex questions, and generate insights from years of engineering work.

You'll join the team responsible for the backend systems that make this possible. That means:

• Building scalable retrieval pipelines
• Evolving our AI search infrastructure
• Integrating structured and unstructured engineering data
• Developing the services that power intelligent experiences across the platform

Over the next year, Operator will expand well beyond conversational search. You'll help build capabilities like:

• Company-wide knowledge retrieval
• Dynamic reporting
• AI-generated dashboards
• Personalized engineering insights that become embedded throughout CoLab

This is a role for someone who enjoys solving deep backend problems. You'll spend far more time thinking about:

• Data architecture
• Search quality
• Retrieval systems
• Scalable services

The work is complex and often ambiguous. This role exists because there often isn’t an existing pattern to follow.

Qualifications

• 7+ years building production backend software
• Strong experience with Python and modern backend development
• Experience building APIs, distributed systems, and cloud-native applications
• Strong understanding of databases, system architecture, and scalable backend design
• Experience working with structured and unstructured data
• Comfortable making architectural decisions in evolving product environments
• Excellent communication skills with both technical and non-technical teammates

Requirements

• You likely won't enjoy this role if:
• You prefer working primarily on frontend applications
• You want highly defined requirements before starting work
• You'd rather optimize existing systems than design entirely new capabilities
• You'll thrive if:
• You enjoy designing backend systems from first principles
• You like difficult infrastructure and data problems
• You're curious about AI, search, and knowledge systems
• You balance technical excellence with pragmatism and collaboration

Benefits

• This is a full-time, permanent position with competitive compensation and stock options
• We offer extended health benefits, unlimited paid vacation, and RRSP matching
• Our headquarters are in St. John’s, Newfoundland, with flexible hybrid and remote options
• This role can be performed remotely from anywhere in Canada

Equity Note

Frequently cited statistics show that people who identify with historically marginalized groups are likely to apply to jobs only if they meet 100% of the qualifications. We encourage you to help us break that statistic and apply even if you don’t meet every single qualification–your potential is what matters most to us.