Technical Lead

Job description

**About ShyftLabs** At ShyftLabs, we live and breathe data. Since 2020, we’ve been helping Fortune 500 companies unlock growth with cutting-edge digital solutions that transform industries and create measurable business impact. We’re growing fast and we’re looking for passionate problem-solvers who are ready to turn big ideas into real outcomes. **The Opportunity** We’re an ambitious **Toronto-based startup** building data-driven products that operate at massive scale, and we’re looking for a **Technical Lead / Backend Architect** to help shape our backend foundation for the next stage of growth. You’ll be hands-on designing distributed systems that handle billions of events monthly, while guiding the engineering team in building scalable, secure, and high-performing services. This is an opportunity to take ownership of architecture decisions, influence technology direction, and work alongside a passionate team that moves fast, experiments boldly, and values craftsmanship. ### What You'll Be Doing - **Architect & Deliver:** Design and implement distributed backend systems capable of handling billions of monthly events (e.g., AdTech pipelines, CAMS microservices). - **Build Scalable Data Pipelines:** Develop robust ingestion and processing frameworks using **Kafka**, **ClickHouse**, and **Snowflake**, ensuring data quality and schema governance. - **Optimize Performance:** Lead database optimization efforts across **Aurora**, **Cloud SQL**, and **PostgreSQL** to deliver low-latency, high-availability systems. - **Set the Bar for Engineering:** Define and enforce best practices around code quality, CI/CD automation, monitoring, and release management. - **Lead & Mentor:** Guide engineers through architectural decisions, conduct design reviews, and balance workload distribution in an **Agile** setup. - **Drive Cloud Architecture:** Design cloud infrastructure on **AWS** and **GCP**, with a focus on scalability, cost efficiency, and security compliance. - **Collaborate Cross-Functionally:** Partner closely with Product Managers and Data teams to evaluate technical feasibility, define milestones, and deliver on roadmap goals. - **Champion Reliability:** Promote observability and reliability engineering practices, building **alerting, tracing, and SLO/SLA dashboards** for high system visibility. ### What You Bring - 8+ years of backend development experience, including 3+ years in a technical leadership or architecture role. - Deep expertise in **distributed systems**, **event-driven architecture**, and **data-intensive applications**. - Strong proficiency in at least one backend language (**[Node.js](http://node.js/)**, **Python**, **Go**, or **Java**). - Hands-on experience with **Kafka**, **ClickHouse**, **Snowflake**, and relational databases. - Proven experience scaling systems on **AWS** or **GCP**. - Exceptional communication, mentorship, and problem-solving skills. - A startup mindset - someone who is adaptable, execution-focused, and unafraid to get hands-on when needed. ### Salary Range - $130,000 - $170,000