Quick Summary
Senior Backend Software Developer
Knak is a mission-driven company focused on empowering people to be creative. We are a world-class enterprise email and landing page creation platform, providing an incredibly powerful yet easy-to-use solution for successful and happy customers.
Our industry-leading SaaS solution, built by Marketers for Marketers, optimizes marketing automation by enhancing efficiency, improving campaign conversion rates, and ensuring brand consistency. We also believe in having fun while achieving these goals!
The Role
We are seeking an experienced Senior Backend Software Developer to scale the intelligence of Knak's AI platform. In this impactful role, you will design and build robust systems that power AI agents, enabling them to analyze data, generate complex marketing assets, and deliver significant value to our customers. You will contribute to architecture decisions, mentor teammates, and collaborate across engineering and product teams to shape the future of marketing automation.
What You'll Be Doing
- Build reliable APIs: Develop and maintain RESTful APIs with Laravel (PHP), ensuring testability, observability, and performance.
- Create AI microservices: Build Python and Node.js services for AI agent hosting and LLM interaction, enabling seamless content generation.
- Design across the stack: Apply object-oriented and functional programming principles to deliver scalable and maintainable systems.
- Optimize databases: Tune queries and indexing for MySQL to improve speed and reduce latency.
- Deploy to the cloud: Utilize AWS services (Lambda, CDN delivery, optimization) to build secure, scalable infrastructure.
- Elevate code quality: Lead and participate in code reviews, maintaining high standards across the team.
- Collaborate cross-functionally: Work with product, design, QA, and DevOps teams to align solutions with business needs.
- Mentor engineers: Share knowledge and set a high bar for technical excellence within the team.
What You Should Bring
- 6+ years of backend software development experience.
- Strong proficiency in PHP (Laravel), Python, Node.js, and MySQL.
- Expertise in RESTful APIs, Test-Driven Development (TDD), and Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) using GitHub Actions.
- Experience with SaaS architecture, microservices, and AWS.
- Knowledge of observability, performance tuning, and scalability best practices.
- Familiarity with Docker/Kubernetes.
- Excellent problem-solving skills and a collaborative mindset.
Nice to Have
- Experience in AI-powered product development.
- Background with Large Language Models (LLMs), LangGraph, or AI agent frameworks.
- Prior experience in a fast-growing SaaS company.
What We Offer
At Knak, our foundational pillars are Culture, Customers, Product, and Growth, with Culture being paramount. We believe a strong culture, built by smart, positive individuals who seek more than a typical nine-to-five, is essential for creating amazing products and delighting customers.
We offer an extremely rewarding work environment, recognized by Ottawa's Best Places to Work 2025. Our investment in our people is demonstrated through competitive salaries, company equity, comprehensive benefits, paid vacation, Life leave days, team lunches and off-sites, and a strong commitment to your career growth.
If this sounds like what you're looking for, we encourage you to apply! We strongly encourage applicants of all genders, ages, ethnicities, cultures, abilities, sexual orientations, and life experiences to apply, even if you don't see yourself fully reflected in every job requirement. Knak is committed to creating an inclusive, barrier-free working environment. For any accommodation requests during the interview process, please contact [email protected].
Our recruitment process includes AI screening for keywords and minimum qualifications, as well as video interviews transcribed with AI, though human decision-making remains central. This job post is for an existing vacancy.
Click here to view the Knak Privacy Policy.