Staff Full Stack Engineer (AI Learner Engagement)

Thinkific is a learning commerce platform. We unite community, courses, and content with commerce, so experts and businesses can create transformative learning experiences to grow their revenue. We build products that create impact and raise the bar on what’s possible through online learning. 

Our team of 300+ Thinkers supports learning businesses around the globe, while working collaboratively to learn, grow, and succeed together. Join us to see how we’re building one of the best workplaces in North American tech!

We believe every candidate should have a fair, inclusive, and overall great experience when exploring a new role with Thinkific. Our hiring team is here to guide you through each step, so you always know what to expect!

Can you architect scalable, reliable systems while mentoring others to reach their technical best? We’re looking for a Staff Full Stack Engineer to join our new AI Learner Engagement team at Thinkific. 

In this role, you’ll lead the design and implementation of high-impact technical solutions, set architectural direction, and ensure our AI-powered learner engagement systems scale effectively for a growing global customer base. You’ll shape best practices, addressing complex engineering problems, and clearing blockers for high-priority work. This will enable us to deliver AI-driven product experiences that businesses can trust as they grow. Reporting to the Senior Engineering Manager, you’ll work closely with other Staff Engineers, Principal Engineers, and Engineering Leadership to advance our technical strategy.

Your goal will be to help guide and execute on projects related to your technical domain. Here’s how you’ll accomplish this:

• Own a technical domain within our system and be accountable for operations, SLOs, and architectural evolution, ensuring the systems you own effectively support AI-powered learner engagement across the platform
• Contribute to the overall technical strategy by helping the business make informed technical decisions through high-level estimates, options, and feasibility assessments
• Contribute to technical direction by reviewing proposals for new technologies, patterns, and implementations
• Collaborate with engineering managers, product managers, designers, and other stakeholders to define requirements and specifications for software projects
• Advocate for engineering best practices by sharing knowledge, teaching others new skills, and contributing to improving engineering standards, tooling, and processes
• Lead technical discussions and mentor other engineers to support growth and improve the overall team’s productivity
• Be a core implementer for your team, role-modelling clean, efficient, and maintainable code in alignment with best practices, coding standards, and testing standards, and uphold these standards within the team
• Participate in on-call rotations, troubleshooting production issues to maintain service reliability

The person we have in mind likely:

• Has 7 or more years of experience as a Software Engineer, including at least 2 years in a Staff Engineer or equivalent technical leadership position
• Has deep architectural expertise in their domain, including event-driven systems, domain-driven design, and multi-tenant architectures
• Understands component architectures, design systems, accessibility, and internationalization
• Experience with modern backend frameworks including Ruby on Rails or Node.js
• Has experience with asynchronous job processing and queuing technologies such as SNS, SQS, BullMQ and Sidekiq
• Has experience with machine learning and/or building products leveraging deep learning
• Leverages AI tools to ideate, improve engineering productivity, and support others in adopting AI effectively
• Has experience designing or scaling production AI features, and is motivated to apply that expertise to deepen learner engagement on the platform
• Combines strong product thinking with adaptability, ownership, and collaborative leadership. They know when to lead, when to listen, and how to elevate the team around them
• Loves to learn and grow, continuously levelling up their skills in this field, whether that’s through formal education, gaining professional experience, or even building their own business 
• Thrive in ambiguity and change and can help others adapt with change

These things would also be nice, but we think you could learn them on the job: 

• Backend
  • Experience with AWS cloud infrastructure 
  • Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform
  • Experience with containers and orchestration using Docker or Kubernetes
  • Experience building rules engines that drive consumer behaviour
• Frontend
  • Experience implementing accessibility standards such as WCAG

We’re committed to fair and transparent pay that reflects both where you are and where you can grow to. This role has a salary range of $148,000 – $210,000 in Canada, designed to capture the full journey from developing skills to excelling in the position. Salaries above the midpoint are typically reserved for team members who have demonstrated strong, consistent performance, deep expertise, and a significant positive impact within the role.

For high-demand or hard-to-fill positions like this one, we may hire above midpoint for candidates who bring exceptional experience, skills, or impact potential.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging & Accessibility

This is just our initial idea of who we’re looking for! At Thinkific, we know that people have unique career journeys. If your experience is close to what we’ve described but you feel that you might be missing a few of the requirements, please still apply! We believe in equal opportunity and are committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging across every facet of our business.

We’re also committed to providing a comfortable and accessible interview experience for every candidate. If there are any accommodations our team can make throughout our hiring process (big or small), please let us know. 

Interested in learning more about the AI work driving Thinkific’s culture of innovation? Check out this post written by our Senior Engineering Manager for the AI team, linked here.

What you can expect if you join Thinkific:

👏 An amazing team of talented, passionate, and kind Thinkers. Together, we’ve built an amazing, award-winning culture—we’re a Certified Great Place to Work and one of Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures by Waterstone!

🚀 The chance to build, improve, and innovate on a platform that’s driving positive impact for thousands of businesses and millions of students around the world.

💸 A competitive compensation package including base salary, equity, team-wide bonuses, and an Employee Share Purchase Plan.

🌴Flexible Paid Time Off to maintain mental and physical health. Our team is encouraged to take a minimum 4 weeks of vacation, plus Thinker Holidays (extended long weekends in the summer) and time off for the December holiday season.

🩺 Health Benefits and Wellness: Comprehensive benefits starting on Day 1 include health, vision, and dental coverage for you and your family, $3,000 for mental health care, a short-term health plan, and an additional health or personal spending account. Plus, family friendly benefits include generous parental leave top-ups for up to 32 weeks, as well as fertility coverage and personalized return to work options. 

💻 Flexible Work. Choose to work from home from anywhere in Canada, at our Vancouver HQ, a co-working space, or anywhere there’s wifi for a change of scenery.

⬆️ Learning & Growth. An annual $1500 USD Learn and Grow fund for conferences, seminars, or courses, plus training, mentorship, coaching, and internal promotion opportunities.

🏡 A home office setup so you’re ready to succeed with a company-owned Macbook Pro and a budget to order a desk, chair, or any accessories to help you work comfortably and productively. 

💙 A place where you can bring your whole self to work. We know that different perspectives lead to amazing ideas, more innovation, and, ultimately, our success as a company. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds, experiences, beliefs, identities, and statuses. Whoever you are—we can’t wait to meet you!

The Thinkific Vancouver office operates on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations of the Coast Salish People. We encourage everyone to learn more about the original caretakers of the land that you currently occupy.