Intermediate Back End / Full Stack Engineer

About Common Wealth

Common Wealth is Canadas fastest-growing group retirement provider, offering an award-winning digital platform that helps Canadians plan, save, and build reliable retirement income. We are driven by our mission to help all Canadians achieve financial security in retirement. In 2024, we doubled our client base and now serve employers and members nationwide.

About the role

We are looking for an experienced Intermediate Back End Engineer to join Common Wealths engineering team. You will play a key role in building and scaling the technology that powers our retirement platform to help us drive toward a future where every Canadian can achieve financial security in retirement. Experience in fintech is a strong plus.

In this role, the focus will be on Back End (with Java/Kotlin, PostgreSQL, AWS) to develop robust, scalable back-end systems, if you are comfortable and experienced as Full Stack (with React/TS Front End), even better! We value engineers who can move fluidly across the stack and collaborate closely with frontend, product, and design teams.

What you will do:

• Write, maintain and deliver code that deliver business objectives. You build product with a strong understanding of both customer and business needs. You will think critically about data modeling, service architecture, and long-term maintainability. Youll balance short-term speed with thoughtful investment in areas that are core to the platform.

• Apply testing frameworks. all developers are responsible for the quality of the product, and to that end are responsible for writing their own unit and integration tests. You will help to continuously improve our test quality to maintain the stability of our platform.

• Embrace a DevOps philosophy. Our infrastructure is fully cloud-based and managed using infrastructure-as-code tools (CDK, CloudFormation). You are comfortable working with various AWS tools & offerings. Engineers are expected to understand how their code operates in production and to consider cost, scalability, monitoring, and security when building new infrastructure.

• Project delivery. Work within a talented cross-functional team, collaborating closely with product and design. You will help shape technical requirements, brainstorm solutions, break down deliverables into milestones, and drive timelines to completion.

• Technical Ownership: Provide technical guidance through code reviews and mentorship. Youll help identify gaps, address issues proactively, and lead continuous improvements across the engineering team.

Who you are:

• Experienced back end engineer: You have 3+ years of experience and youve worked on production systems and have a track record of complex project deliveries. You have experience building scalable systems in Java and/or Kotlin, using relational databases like PostgreSQL. Youre skilled at translating product requirements into functional, reliable code, and youve tackled tough challenges related to scalability and performance. You understand the underlying fundamentals and apply them thoughtfully.

• Skilled in end-to-end delivery: You think holistically about solutions - from data modeling in the database, backend logic, to how everything integrates with the frontend. You have experience maintaining infrastructure in AWS, and bonus points if youre also comfortable with frontend development using React and TypeScript.

• Impact driven: You care deeply about the impact of your work. You take the time to understand the business context and user needs, and youre motivated by building applications that contribute meaningfully to the companys success and delight our users.

• Resourceful and well-rounded: You understand that building a great product goes beyond writing code. Youre familiar with the tools and practices that keep production systems running smoothly in the real world. You think proactively about observability (e.g., Datadog), and you build systems that surface issues before they become problems.

• Curious and self-directed learner: Youre comfortable navigating ambiguity and are motivated to explore, learn, and grow. You stay on top of emerging tools that enhance your technical foundation including technologies like AI coding agents and youre eager to apply them where they add real value.

Nice to have:

• Experience working in the fintech industry

• Kotlin experience on top of a solid Java foundation

• Frontend development experience with React and TypeScript

• Hands-on experience with AWS infrastructure and DevOps management

Our Tech Stack:

• Frontend: TypeScript, React, Redux Saga, Vite, Cypress, Jest

• Backend: Java, Kotlin, Spring Boot, JPA/Hibernate, Gradle, Cucumber, JUnit

• Infrastructure on AWS: IaC with CDK, Docker, ECS, Fargate, RDS Aurora / PostgreSQL, S3, DynamoDB, CloudFront, Lambda@Edge, Cognito, GuardDuty

• Other Tools: Datadog, LaunchDarkly, LogRocket

Why work with us:

Common Wealth is a fast-growing company with a mission to change the lives of Canadians. Youll be joining a dynamic and flexible work environment where you have the autonomy to shape your role. Youll have ample opportunities to learn, grow, and advance within the organization while contributing to improving the Canadian retirement landscape. You will have the option to work fully remote or hybrid from our Toronto office.

Benefits include:

• Competitive salary ($105,000.00 to $120,000.00 CAD)

• Health and dental benefits

• Health spending account

• 5% employer match into one of our award-winning group retirement plans

• 4 weeks of vacation

• Learning & Development Budget

We are a respectful workplace committed to building a skilled and diverse workforce. We believe in fostering an inclusive work environment where all individuals have an opportunity to succeed. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone. We look forward to hearing from you!