Senior Backend Engineer, Thinkific
CA$120-150k
+ Equity + Team-wide bonuses + ESPP
Online course creation platform
Be an early applicant
Online course creation platform
201-500 employees
Be an early applicant
CA$120-150k
+ Equity + Team-wide bonuses + ESPP
201-500 employees
Company mission
To make it simple for entrepreneurs and established businesses – our Creator Educators - to scale and generate revenue by teaching what they know.
Role
Who you are
- Has 5+ years of experience building and maintaining production web applications
- Is skilled in Ruby on Rails
- Has deep experience with PostgreSQL or similar relational databases, particularly with schema design and query optimization
- Understands containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) and modern CI/CD pipelines
- Has experience designing and maintaining APIs (REST and/or GraphQL) in production
- Understands distributed systems concepts like caching, background jobs, queues, and message passing
- Cares about system reliability and has collaborated with SRE or platform teams to improve it
- Communicates clearly and can translate complex technical concepts for cross-functional partners
- Mentors others and contributes to a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement
- Loves to learn and grow. They’ve found (and keep looking for) ways to level up their skills in this field, whether that’s through formal education, gaining professional experience, or maybe even building their own business
Desirable
- Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Helm)
- Knowledge of AWS services such as RDS, S3, and ALB
- Experience improving developer experience or CI/CD reliability
- Understanding of Cloudflare/CDN configuration and caching strategies
- Familiarity with developer tooling and DevEx focused improvements
What the job involves
- We’re looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to join us at Thinkific
- In this role, you’ll work on our platform team to design and enhance backend systems that power our core platform, improve reliability and performance
- You will collaborate closely with our SREs and feature teams to evolve our technical foundation
- You’ll tackle challenging problems across data modeling, system design, API performance, and developer experience, helping Thinkific scale for millions of creators and learners
- Your goal will be to lead and deliver high-impact projects within your technical domain while mentoring others and setting strong engineering standards
- Design, implement, and optimize backend systems and APIs that power Thinkific’s platform at scale
- Improve system reliability and performance across services, databases, and application layers
- Collaborate with SRE and feature teams to evolve our architecture, focusing on observability, reliability, and performance at scale
- Design and maintain database schemas, queries, and indexing strategies for high performance and data integrity
- Use containerized development workflows (Docker, Kubernetes) and CI/CD pipelines to deliver reliable, testable code
- Conducting performance investigations and tuning queries, APIs, and background jobs
- Instrument code and systems with metrics, logs, and traces using tools like Datadog, New Relic, or Prometheus
- Write high-quality, maintainable Ruby (Rails) and/or Node.js code and review peers’ code for correctness, scalability, and performance
- Mentor engineers, sharing best practices, and helping drive technical direction across the team
Our take
As the world becomes increasingly globalized, the competition for jobs is fiercer than ever. Whilst traditional educational institutions are failing to deliver the skills of tomorrow, Thinkific provides a way for the new wave of instructors to meet this educational demand, with its all-in-one course creation platform.
Course creators on Thinkific have unparalleled ownership over their content and course, whilst also having access to a suite of tools to help operate, promote, and monetize those courses. Its customization tools also mean creators can create a strong brand for their knowledge business, with a range of integrations ensuring Thinkific remains a one-stop shop for all their needs.
Its latest updates enhance its capabilities for building engaging customer education programs. New features like advanced customization and CORM integration offer users powerful tools for creating interactive and personalized learning experiences. With continuous innovations, Thinkific remains dedicated to supporting course creators and enterprises, providing them with the flexibility and resources needed to excel in the competitive educational market.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-20% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Sep 2020
$22m
EARLY VC
Nov 2019
$2.4m
EARLY VC
Total funding: $24.4m
Company benefits
- Open vacation policy: We're big proponents of sand, sun, and taking time to recharge. As long as you're getting your work done and keeping your team supported, take vacation when you need it. We encourage Thinkers to take at least 4 weeks vacation each year
- Flexible work environments: Whether you’re working from Thinkific HQ or working from home, set your own hours to find a rhythm that works for you and your team. Finding the time for workouts, laundry, daycare dropoffs, or appointments is easier than ever.
- Learning opportunities and personal development: Interested in a course, conference, or career coaching? We’ve got you covered with our $1500 Learn and Grow fund to support your personal and professional growth, on top of regular lunch & learns, internal courses and workshops, and a coaching program. Our people leaders will work with you to ensure you’re taking advantage of the learning opportunities you want and need
- Competitive benefits package: Our benefits kick in on your first day at Thinkific and include coverage for health, vision, dental, prescriptions, and up to $3000 for your mental health. Our Employee and Family Assistance Program will also take care of you and your family, providing everything to support your well-being
- Parental leave: We care about helping you grow your career AND your family. Family is important to us, and our paid parental leave gives you a little extra help while you're beginning this new adventure. Learn more about our family leave benefits here
- We actually hang out: Thinkers are some of the kindest (and most fun!) people out there. We're into boat parties, hackathons, company retreats, and celebrating everything from Canada Day to Brazilian Carnival. Wherever you’re based, you’ll have opportunities to connect with your team both virtually and IRL
- The bow-wow benefits: Office dogs. Plural. Meet them on Instagram at @dogsofthinkific
Company HQ
Strathcona, Vancouver, BC
Leadership
Greg Smith
(CEO)Spent 3 years working as a Lawyer before co-founding Moving Media Group, working as the Director of Sales. They now hold the position of CEO at Alpha Score Seminars, as well as being Co-Founder and CEO at Thinkific.
Miranda Lievers
(Advisor)Spent 7 years at Telus in progressive leadership roles launching high-speed internet across Canada. Co-founded Blue Olive Photography Inc. before co-founding Thinkific.
Matt Smith
(CSO)Over a decade of experience in Product, Technology and Growth roles. Founded Alpha Score Seminars before working as CTO of Healthism. Previously worked as CTO of Thinkific before launching successful Instagram-scheduling software startup, Later.com. Returned to Thinkific in 2021 as CSO.
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