Intermediate Backend Engineer

About ANVIL ANVIL is a trusted partner in the defence industry, delivering cutting-edge solutions that enhance military capabilities and operational effectiveness. We extend our expertise to public safety, law enforcement, and national security organizations, accelerating mission-critical decision-making through analytical tools, automations, and game-changing machine learning capabilities. ANVIL helps organizations discover, manage, enrich, fuse, and exploit the information available to them in support of Information Dominance and Decision Advantage. Job Type: Full Time Remote (Hybrid option available for those in the Ottawa area - 55 Murray Street Office) Total Compensation: CAD $105,000.00 - $145,000.00 base salary - Placement within range based on experience and qualifications Vacancy Status: This posting is for an existing vacancy at ANVIL. We are actively hiring for this role Role (Description) As an Intermediate Backend Engineer, you will play a critical role in designing, building, and maintaining the server-side systems that power our mission-critical software. You will develop reliable and well-structured APIs, model and manage data with care, and ensure that the services you build are robust, observable, and easy for other engineers to reason about and integrate with. You will work closely with engineering and product teams to define data contracts, shape API design, and deliver backend capabilities that underpin complex analytical and operational workflows. In this role, you will bring a thoughtful approach to type consistency and data integrity, contribute to event-driven and streaming architectures, and collaborate across the stack to ensure that the systems you build meet the reliability standards that mission-critical environments demand. We are looking for a well-rounded engineer with genuine experience across the backend stack. This would be someone who understands not just how to build an endpoint, but how data flows through a system, where it can break down, and how to design services that hold up under real-world operational pressure. This is a full-time position based in Ottawa / Remote. Eligible candidates must either possess or be eligible to obtain a Government of Canada Top Secret security clearance. Required Qualifications Security Clearance Eligible for Government of Canada Top Secret security clearance Experience 3+ years of hands-on experience in backend engineering, with production-grade work in Python Demonstrated experience designing and building REST APIs, including thoughtful handling of resource modelling, error responses, versioning, and documentation Familiarity with real-time (WebSocket, SSE) and event-driven (Kafka, Redpanda) patterns Proven experience working with SQL databases in production, with a preference for candidates with Postgres depth (including schema design, query optimization, and migration management) Demonstrated understanding of type consistency and data contracts (including how to define, enforce, and evolve shared interfaces between services and across team boundaries) Skills & Competencies Strong grasp of backend fundamentals: service design, data modelling, concurrency, and error handling Ability to write clean, maintainable, and well-documented code that other engineers can confidently build on Clear understanding of how data flows through distributed systems and where consistency, validation, and failure modes need to be designed for explicitly Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate technical decisions and trade-offs to both technical and non-technical audiences Preferred Qualifications & Competencies Experience with knowledge management systems, case management systems, or relevant defence industry applications Familiarity with Agile/Scrum methodologies and sprint-based development cycles Experience working in or closely with defence, public safety, or national security organizations Familiarity with containerization and deployment tooling (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) Experience with CI/CD pipelines and integrating backend test suites into automated build processes Exposure to observability practices including structured logging, metrics, and distributed tracing Key Responsibilities API & Service Development Design and implement well-structured APIs that are intuitive, consistent, and reliable for consuming teams Define and maintain clear data contracts and shared interface schemas, collaborating closely with frontend and data engineers to manage changes without introducing breakage Contribute to backend architecture discussions with a focus on simplicity, maintainability, and long-term operational health Data & Database Management Design and manage Postgres schemas that reflect sound data modelling principles and support evolving product requirements Write efficient, well-considered queries and contribute to database migration strategies that minimize risk to production systems Ensure data integrity and