Head of Backend

About the Role A fast-growing productivity SaaS startup is looking for a Head of Backend to lead and scale its backend engineering function. You'll join a small, highly capable development team and play a pivotal role in consolidating a microservices architecture, driving performance and reliability improvements, and powering new product growth through well-crafted APIs and integrations. This is a hands-on leadership role — you'll both shape engineering direction and write production code every day. What You'll Do Expand, consolidate, and scale a microservices backend architecture for a high-growth product. Improve overall backend performance, reliability, and security posture. Design and develop new REST APIs for both internal and external consumers. Build and maintain integrations with third-party services and external APIs. Create internal tooling to streamline development and operations workflows. Define and contribute to software lifecycle processes and engineering best practices. Proactively propose innovative features and backend solutions aligned with product goals. Occasionally engage directly with customers to triage and reproduce bugs. What We're Looking For Required skills & experience: 11+ years of professional backend development experience (minimum 6 years considered for exceptional profiles). Strong hands-on proficiency in Go and Node.js ; PHP familiarity is a bonus. Proven experience building and consuming REST APIs with OAuth2 authentication. Deep experience with distributed systems and microservices architecture. Solid knowledge of PostgreSQL or other relational databases and caching systems. Proficiency with Unix-based systems , Docker , and Kubernetes . Hands-on experience with cloud platforms ( GCP , AWS , or equivalent). Experience scaling infrastructure and implementing monitoring and logging solutions. Strong fundamentals in algorithms, data structures, and software design. Proficient with Git version control. Strong spoken and written English communication skills. Nice to have: Experience with third-party and external API integrations. Security hardening background for backend services. Experience building developer-facing internal tools. The ideal candidate is: a collaborative, security-conscious engineer-leader who sweats the details, cares about user experience at the API level, and brings a flexible, can-do mindset to a small team environment. Compensation & Benefits Salary: $80,000 – $120,000 USD annually, depending on experience. Opportunity to shape backend architecture at a critical growth stage (Series A/B equivalent). Small team with high ownership and direct product impact. Visa sponsorship is not available for this role. Location This is an on-site position based in Canada . Candidates must be eligible to work in Canada without visa sponsorship.