Backend Platform Software Engineer at Top Hat

The Core Backend team owns the systems and internal tooling that every other product team at Top Hat depends on. You're working in the deepest parts of the codebase where a subtle failure has company-wide consequences and performance gains multiply across the system. Your primary customers are other developers. You'll collaborate broadly, but success here means the platform is faster, more reliable, and easier to build on than it was before you touched it. This role is for someone who removes unnecessary abstractions, who reaches for a profiler before a framework, and who finds genuine satisfaction in leaving a system measurably better than they found it. What You'll Own - Core backend systems, libraries, and internal developer tooling used across product development and customer support - Performance, reliability, and architectural improvements to the system with the highest downstream impact - Code quality and technical standards for the system surface area you own What We're Looking For Experience - 2+ years of industry, research, or graduate-level experience, including at least 2 years working in large codebases with complex algorithms and data structures. Open source contributions at this scale count. - We hire for systems depth first. If your background is in a different stack but you've worked at the level of compilers, databases, game engines, OS/browser internals, or high-frequency trading systems, we want to talk. Technical Knowledge - Programming on Linux/BSD/MacOS - Python (FastAPI, Django) - SQL (PostgreSQL, MySQL) - Distributed Systems - Profiling & Optimization Nice To Haves - TypeScript/JavaScript (React) - Cloud Experience (AWS, GCP, etc.) - Observability (OpenTelemetry, Datadog, etc.) - Infrastructure-As-Code (Terraform, Ansible, etc.) - Troubleshooting TCP/DNS/HTTP/SMTP/etc. - Database Administration, Maintenance & Scaling - Designing APIs for Customers How You Work - You can communicate with developers and non-developers alike, and adjust your level of abstraction to fit the audience - You excel at written communication to both plan and document work on a geographically dispersed team - You break down ambiguous problems into concrete steps without waiting for full specifications - You build accurate mental models of large, unfamiliar codebases quickly and use them to identify what matters - You carefully consider the data structures and performance characteristics of your solutions - You take full ownership of quality: your own code and the code you touch, refactoring as necessary to maintain a long lived codebase - You understand the tradeoffs involved in using LLMs to solve problems and have a strong feel for the types of problems they excel at solving Why team members love working at Top Hat: - A noble mission that creates meaningful, fulfilling work - A team that cares deeply for customers and for each other - Flexible, remote first work environment - Professional learning and development for all role levels - An awesome and welcoming Toronto HQ - Competitive health benefits that start on day one - A management team focused on performance, growth, engagement and connection - Our winning strategy and market potential - Innovative PTO policy with lots of time and space for self-care - Passionate customers that believe in us—and what we do - A chance to work with new tech like generative AI—and see the customer impact