Senior Backend Engineer (Applications)

About Forma.ai:  

Forma.ai is a Series B startup that's revolutionizing how sales compensation is designed, managed and optimized. We handle billions in annual managed commissions for market leaders like Edmentum, Stryker, and Autodesk. 

Our growth has been fuelled by our passion for fundamentally changing and shaping how companies use sales intelligence to drive business strategy.  

We’re welcoming equally driven individuals who are excited about creating something big! 

About the Team

We build enterprise software that helps organizations optimize sales performance and improve go-to-market agility. Our engineering organization includes multiple product application teams responsible for delivering core customer-facing capabilities.

We are seeking Senior Backend Engineers to join our application teams. You’ll work alongside staff, senior, and early-career engineers to design, build, and scale backend systems that power enterprise-grade product workflows. This is an opportunity to work on complex product and data problems while contributing meaningfully to technical decisions, system quality, and team delivery.

We are low on meetings and high on accountability. Most of the team is in the EST time zone, with a few located in AST, PST, and Central as well.

What you’ll be doing

You will play an important role in the continued evolution of our application stack. You will design and build backend capabilities for complex product workflows, contribute to system design discussions, and help ensure our systems remain maintainable, reliable, and scalable as we grow.

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you are expected to operate with strong ownership and sound technical judgment. This includes identifying risks in the work you own, surfacing edge cases, asking thoughtful questions, and proposing improvements that strengthen the quality and reliability of the system.

You will:

• Design and build backend services that power complex product workflows.
• Contribute to data models for hierarchical, relationship-heavy, and enterprise-scale datasets.
• Make technical decisions that balance maintainability, performance, and operational simplicity.
• Improve testing, observability, and production reliability within the services you work on.
• Partner with Product to translate business requirements into clean, scalable backend designs.
• Participate in design reviews, code reviews, and technical discussions.
• Support other engineers through pairing, reviews, and knowledge sharing.
• Use AI tooling to improve delivery speed while maintaining strong engineering standards.

What we’re looking for

• Strong experience designing and building backend systems in production environments.
• Proficiency in at least one backend language such as Java, Python, Kotlin, Go, C#, or similar.
• Strong foundation in SQL, relational schema design, and data modeling.
• Experience with hierarchical, graph-like, relationship-heavy, or workflow-driven data structures.
• Ability to identify technical risks, reason through tradeoffs, and propose practical improvements.
• Experience improving scalability, reliability, observability, or maintainability in production systems.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Comfort collaborating across Engineering, Product, and Analytics while remaining hands-on.

Nice to have

• Experience building SaaS products for mid-market or enterprise customers.
• Experience with rule-driven systems, validation workflows, or approval/governance platforms.
• Familiarity with AWS-based infrastructure and Kubernetes.
• Exposure to Sales Performance Management, RevOps, Incentive Compensation, or related domains.

Technologies we use

Frontend:   JavaScript, React, TypeScript

Backend:   Java/Spring Boot, Django, Postgres

Infrastructure:   AWS, Docker

What success looks like: 30/60/90 days

First 30 days

You’ll build context across   Forma.ai ’s product, customers, backend architecture, data models, and engineering practices.

By the end of your first 30 days, you will have:

• Set up your development environment and become comfortable navigating the codebase, services, and infrastructure.
• Built a clear understanding of the product domain, backend architecture, and key data flows.
• Learned the team’s practices around testing, observability, deployment, and reliability.
• Built relationships with Engineering, Product, and Analytics partners.
• Shipped small improvements or fixes to build familiarity with the system.

First 60 days

You’ll begin owning meaningful backend work and contributing to technical decisions.

By the end of your first 60 days, you will have:

• Taken ownership of a backend component, service, workflow, or feature area.
• Designed and delivered maintainable backend code aligned with team standards.
• Partnered with Product and Engineering peers to translate requirements into scalable backend designs.
• Identified risks, edge cases, or inconsistencies in the systems you work on.
• Contributed to improvements in data modeling, service boundaries, testing, observability, or reliability.

First 90 days

You’ll be operating as a trusted senior contributor within the team.

By the end of your first 90 days, you will have:

• Designed and delivered a meaningful backend initiative or major feature.
• Improved important data models, backend services, or workflow handling.
• Contributed to technical direction through clear, well-reasoned design decisions.
• Improved the reliability, observability, scalability, or maintainability of backend systems.
• Helped the team deliver complex product workflows with greater confidence and clarity.

Additional Job Info:

• This position is for an existing vacancy
• Salary Range: 150-190K CAD

What you can expect from us

Meaningful compensation. In addition to your base salary, you’ll join our employee stock ownership plan to further recognize your contributions to Forma.ai ’s success.

Healthcare coverage. We have a full benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance, and a paid parental leave program.

Learning and development. Access the resources you want to help you grow in your role by utilizing our $750 yearly training stipend.

Growth. You’ll have a huge opportunity to build a career for yourself and gain the type of experience you’re looking for, whether that’s as an individual contributor or as a people leader.

Our Values:  

• Work well, together. We’re real. We have kids and pets. Mortgages and student loans. We’re in this together, so no matter how brilliant any one of us is, we always play nice with one another – no exceptions.  
• Be precise. Be relentless. We believe complacency breeds failure, so we set new goals as quickly as we achieve them. We persist in the face of adversity, learn from our mistakes, and push each other to continuously improve. The status-quo is kryptonite.
• Love our tech. Love our customers. Our platform solves a very complex problem in a currently underserved market. While everyone at Forma isn’t customer-facing, we’re all customer-focused. Maybe even slightly customer-obsessed. ­ 

Use of AI for Recruitment

Currently, Forma.ai does not use artificial intelligence as part of our recruitment process, specifically but not limited to the screening, filtering and shortlisting of applicants.  

Our commitment to you:  

Forma is a proud equal opportunity employer that is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive work environment.   Every effort to accommodate candidates for accessibility will be made upon request. Information received related to accommodations will be addressed confidentially. We know that applying to a new role takes a lot of effort. You're encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't precisely match the job description. There are many paths to a successful career and we’re looking forward to reading yours.

We thank all candidates for their interest however only qualified applicants will be shortlisted.