Senior Software Developer (Assessment Software)

Join Acuity Insights’ startup-to-scaleup journey as a Senior Software Developer. In this fully remote role , working within EST and PST time zones from anywhere in Canada, you’ll be part of a team modernizing our assessment platform, Casper.

You’ll build new systems, maintain existing systems, lead design, and mentor developers.

The systems you’ll work in are mostly JavaScript and TypeScript , though we have some new code in Go . Older apps are Meteor-based monoliths that run on Heroku and store data in MongoDB .

Newer apps are React UIs that call well-defined APIs running on AWS API Gateway and Lambda and use DynamoDB .

The role is ideal for a quality-focused full-stack developer with strong technical proficiency who is looking to advance their career with a people-centric company that prioritizes work-life balance, invests in continuous growth, and builds products with meaningful social impact.

The Future We’re Building

Imagine a world powered by everyone’s full potential.

At Acuity Insights, it’s the future we envision and strive to build.

Our company was founded on the need for a higher education admissions method that looks beyond academic performance and considers the whole student their unique qualities, experiences, and strengths.

Today, our solutions help discover, nurture and realize people's potential, supporting holistic success from admissions to graduation for students, education programs, and higher education institutions across North America, the U.

K., Australia and Saudi Arabia.

Our core assessment product, Casper, provides education programs with a more holistic view of applicants by evaluating their soft skills.

Incorporating Casper's insights into the admissions process results in a larger applicant pool, enables student success, and graduates better professionals.

Since 2014, Casper has been adopted by over 600 higher education programs, and more than 1 million applicants have registered to take the test.

With our core education program management solution, One45, we help medical schools and other health professions programs optimize the complex processes and critical components of their curriculum and student assessments to generate data-driven insights needed to graduate competent future healthcare professionals.

With our fast-growing data and insights solution, Analytics, we leverage critical integrations with our data warehouse and powerful dashboards to provide medical schools with deep insights and intelligence on student and program performance, powering real-time decision-making and continuous quality improvement.

Role & Opportunity Overview

To give you the most accurate view of the role and opportunity, our Senior Staff Developer, Brian, shares his perspective and insights on the projects you’ll tackle, the skills you need to bring, and the growth opportunities ahead.

A Developer’s Perspective

Hi! I'm Brian, a Senior Staff Software Developer at Acuity. We're looking for a Senior Software Developer to help grow our team and meet our company's lofty goals.

You might appreciate a developer (and future co-worker!) explaining what we're looking for. I didn't use ChatGPT to write this at all.

These are actual human words!

Without further ado, let me tell you about this job.

What Skills Should You Bring?

Either you are experienced with backend JavaScript or you can learn it quickly. Knowledge of distributed systems and cloud platforms is important.

AWS experience is ideal, but we expect you to be a strong Senior Developer who can ramp up on AWS pretty fast if you have other cloud experience, too.

You need to be comfortable working on full-stack web applications. You can change UIs, APIs, database schemas, or deployment pipelines as needed.

Ideally, you've worked on and led large system migrations. Preferably, you’ve experienced one migration that’s gone well (so you recognize success) but also one that was challenging (so you've learned from mistakes).

Regardless of your prior experience, we expect you to be deeply curious as you quickly master technologies new to you at Acuity.

What Will You Work On?

Our team owns multiple web applications that make up our Casper test system. We've begun a multi-year process to migrate our Meteor and MongoDB stack to a modern stack based on React, Lambda, and DynamoDB.

We have initial projects underway but by no means is the plan fully defined. As a senior-level developer, you have opinions on design tradeoffs in this space and can articulate them in productive debates with the team, weighing short vs.

long-term impact. You'll be the glue between leaders in Product and the rest of the development team. You'll work directly with product managers to prioritize features and improvements.

It's essential that your technical perspective informs what's possible. Your opinions are as strong as the data you have to defend them.

Along the way, you will help guide our quality improvements. We expect you to be familiar with techniques and processes such as pair programming, code reviews, automated testing (unit / integration / end-to-end), feature flagging, monitoring, and alarming.

We expect that you will mentor developers to adopt the practices that meet your quality expectations. We also expect that you can articulate the limits of these approaches and know what mix to use for any given problem.

As a Senior Developer it's crucial that you have strong written and verbal communication skills. You should have no problem discussing issues publicly on Slack, ensuring your reasoning is available to anyone when needed.

Your project plans, status updates, high-level task summaries should be clear and easy reads. You will contribute all manner of system and architecture diagrams to the wiki to ensure the whole team is aligned with your technical vision.

You also know when it’s time to hop on a video call to hash something out.

You're also adept at providing feedback. You can gauge where a developer is at and provide them with specific, actionable feedback to improve.

Your commits and pull requests will set the high standard for other developers to follow. Your review comments will be written with empathy and tact where code quality could be improved to meet your professional standards.

How Might You Grow?

We expect you to continuously improve during your time at Acuity. Staff developers and product leaders with Big Tech experience will help you develop your skills through mentorship.

For self-directed improvement, Acuity provides an annual learning budget of $3,000 so you can buy the books, training, and conference passes you need to grow.

The company also has occasional hackathons where you can flex your product-oriented skills or deep dive into a technical topic you've always wanted to know more about.

Thanks for making it this far!

If you’re interested in working at Acuity with the team and I, keep reading. There’s more information about the company and people here, the selection and interview process, and compensation ahead.

Selection Process

We review every application. We consider all your professional experiences and how you have applied your skills and knowledge to add value and make an impact.

We also look for evidence that you are naturally caring, curious, driven, and resilient in rapidly changing environments.

To ensure a fair process, you will receive equal consideration whether you apply, get introduced as a referral, or directly contact the manager or recruiter for this role.

You will automatically be disqualified if you do not live in Canada or have a work permit.

Interview Process

We have designed our interview process to be a two-way discovery and create space for meaningful conversations.

We want to get to know you personally and professionally, understand your career journey and experiences, relevant skills, professional interests and priorities, and assess your alignment with our business needs and what we can offer you.

We also want you to have the information you need to make an informed decision about this opportunity. That’s why we encourage you to stay curious and ask questions every step of the way.

Here are the steps you can expect :

• Application Review. A human reviews your application for potential and fit.
• Conversation with Recruiter. Have a 60-minute phone call during which you get to share your professional journey, career interests and priorities and learn in-depth about the company, culture, and team.
• Asynchronous Code Review. A brief take-home project that offers you the opportunity to showcase your ability to give feedback and mentor other team members.
• Meet the Manager. Spend 45 minutes on a video call with your potential future manager. Discuss your relevant technical work experiences and learn in-depth about the day-to-day of the team and role.
• Meet the Team & Showcase Your Technical Abilities. Meet with 3 more team members, a blend of technical and non-technical people, leaders, future peers and collaborators.

You’ll meet 1-1 in a remote setting, go through live coding and system design exercises, and learn more about life at Acuity Insights.

• Wait For a Decision. The Hiring Manager consolidates and evaluates feedback from the team to make a hiring decision. This typically takes 2-4 days.
• Offer & Reference Check. If we find a mutual match, we'll invite you to an offer conversation. The offer is contingent on completing a reference check.

Compensation

Several factors will inform our offer : your unique qualifications, experience, expected contributions and salary needs, market data, budget, and internal pay equity.

The target annual compensation for this role is $135,000 to $155,000 CAD. While this range does not represent the full Senior Individual Contributor salary band, it reflects the budget allocated to fill this position.

Benefits From Day 1

• Flexible and remote work. Have the freedom to work from anywhere within Canada and work from abroad for up to 6 weeks per year, and configure your schedule and work hours to best suit you.
• Prioritize rest and time off. Join the team in our two-week year-end company closure, enjoy flexible, self-directed vacation (most take 4-6 weeks annually), and enjoy an extra Friday off each month from February to November.
• Invest in your growth. Access a $3,000 yearly learning budget to support your professional and personal development.
• Stake in the company. Become a partial owner of Acuity Insights when you join, sharing in long-term value creation and financial success through our employee stock option plan.
• Save for retirement. Join our GRSP matching program through Wealthsimple . We match contributions up to 2% of your salary.
• Support for health & wellness. Access comprehensive health benefits for yourself and your dependents through Equitable Life of Canada and Nivati to nurture and enhance your holistic health and well-being.
• Grow your family. Take parental leave, regardless of your role in expanding your family, and receive a top-up for 16 weeks beyond EI benefits.

Life & People at Acuity Insights

At Acuity Insights, you’ll be part of a community of over 125 professionals, mostly based in Canada. While we primarily collaborate remotely, our team members connect socially and occasionally co-work in person in our larger people pockets, too.

Human Qualities That Help People Thrive at Acuity

Our team is built on a set of shared values : caring, curious, and driven. We value people who show empathy, listen actively, and act with integrity.

We want our team members to be naturally curious and open to exploring new ideas and viewpoints and bring urgency and creativity to problem-solving.

Our team thrives on continuous improvement, resilience in the face of changes around us, and self-awareness. Above all, we believe in purposeful work that aligns with our shared values and makes the world a better place.

Our Commitment to Inclusion and Belonging

We strive to create a workplace where every person feels respected, valued, and fully supported. Our workplace and supporting policies are designed to foster a culture of belonging, equity, and work-life balance.

We embrace the unique strengths and lived experiences each team member brings, recognizing that diversity enriches our environment and drives our success.

We encourage applicants from non-traditional backgrounds or historically marginalized and underrepresented groups to join us.

Thanks for considering Acuity Insights as your next employer!