{"id":69092,"url":"https://alion.io/job/forma-senior-back-end-engineer-data-platform","title":"Senior Back End Engineer (Data Platform)","company":{"id":28482,"name":"Forma.ai","domain":"forma.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/forma","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"C","score":59,"open_postings":22,"ghost_share":0.682,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Toronto, Canada"],"countries":["CA"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":75000,"max_usd":135000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":209},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"C#","optional":false},{"name":"ETL/ELT","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Kotlin","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Scala","optional":false},{"name":"Spark","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"Django","optional":true},{"name":"Docker","optional":true},{"name":"Java","optional":true},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":true},{"name":"React.js","optional":true},{"name":"Spring Boot","optional":true},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-06-16T14:04:56Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-06-25","last_verified_at":"2026-10-18T01:33:00Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":123,"trust":{"level":"ghost","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale","company_stale"],"days_open":122},"description":"About Forma.ai: \nForma.ai is a Series Bstartup 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. \nOur growth has been fuelled by our passion for fundamentally changing and shaping how companies use sales intelligence to drive business strategy. \nWe’re welcoming equally driven individuals who are excited about creating something big! \nAbout the Team\nEngineers on this team build our rules-based calculation engine for processing sales commissions. This might sound simple if you have never been exposed to sales compensation plans, it is not.\nWe are low on meetings and high on accountability. Most of the team is in the EST time zone, with a few located in PST and Central as well. We are still evolving many areas of the platform, which means there is meaningful room to improve the design, reliability, and scalability of the systems we build.\nWhat you’ll be doing\nReporting to the Manager of Data Platform, you will play an important role in the evolution of our Spark-based data platform. You’ll design and build data-rich platform capabilities, contribute to system design discussions, and help ensure our data systems remain reliable, maintainable, and scalable as Forma grows.\nAs a Senior Engineer, Data Platform, 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 platform.\nYou will:\nDesign, build, and improve Spark-based data pipelines and platform services.\nWork with complex data models representing sales compensation plans, hierarchies, relationships, and enterprise datasets.\nBuild reliable, deterministic data systems that customers and internal teams can trust.\nImprove testing, observability, data quality, and production reliability across the systems you work on.\nPartner with Product, Engineering, and Analytics to translate complex business requirements into scalable data designs.\nParticipate in design reviews, code reviews, technical discussions, and knowledge sharing.\nUse AI tooling to improve delivery speed while maintaining strong engineering standards.\nWhat we’re looking for\nStrong experience building data systems or backend systems in production.\nExperience with Spark or similar data processing / ETL frameworks.\nProficiency in at least one production-grade language such as Python, Java, Scala, Kotlin, Go, C#, or similar.\nStrong SQL, relational schema design, and data modeling skills.\nExperience with large-scale, hierarchical, graph-like, relationship-heavy, or workflow-driven datasets.\nAbility to reason through technical tradeoffs, identify risks, and propose practical improvements.\nExperience improving scalability, reliability, observability, or maintainability in data-intensive systems.\nStrong communication skills and comfort collaborating across Engineering, Product, and Analytics.\nNice to have\nExperience building SaaS products for mid-market or enterprise customers.\nExperience with rule-driven systems, validation workflows, calculation engines, or approval/governance platforms.\nFamiliarity with AWS-based infrastructure and Kubernetes.\nFamiliarity with graph databases or graph-based modeling concepts.\nExposure to Sales Performance Management, RevOps, Incentive Compensation, or related domains.\nTechnologies we use\nFrontend: JavaScript, React, TypeScript\nBackend: Java/Spring Boot, Django, Postgres\nData Platform: Spark\nInfrastructure: AWS, Docker\nWhat success looks like: 30/60/90 days\nFirst 30 days\nYou’ll focus on building context across Forma’s product domain, data platform, calculation engine, data models, and engineering practices.\nBy the end of your first 30 days, you will have:\nSet up your development environment and become comfortable navigating the codebase, data platform, services, and infrastructure.\nBuilt a clear understanding of the product domain, Spark-based data flows, and key data models.\nLearned the team’s practices around testing, observability, deployment, data quality, and reliability.\nBuilt relationships with Engineering, Product, and Analytics partners.\nShipped small improvements or fixes to build familiarity with the system.\nFirst 60 days\nYou’ll begin owning meaningful data platform work and contributing to technical decisions.\nBy the end of your first 60 days, you will have:\nTaken ownership of a data pipeline, platform component, workflow, or feature area.\nDesigned and delivered maintainable data platform code aligned with team standards.\nPartnered with Product, Engineering, and Analytics peers to translate requirements into scalable data designs.\nIdentified risks, edge cases, data quality issues, or inconsistencies in the systems you work on.\nContributed to improvements in data modeling, pipeline reliability, testing, observability, or service boundaries.\nFirst 90 days\nYou’ll be operating as a trusted senior contributor within the team.\nBy the end of your first 90 days, you will have:\nDesigned and delivered a meaningful data platform initiative or major feature.\nImproved important data models, Spark pipelines, platform services, or workflow handling.\nContributed to technical direction through clear, well-reasoned design decisions.\nImproved the reliability, observability, scalability, or maintainability of data-intensive systems.\nHelped the team deliver complex calculation and data workflows with greater confidence and clarity.\nAdditional Job Info:\nThis position is for an existing vacancy\nSalary Range: 150-190K CAD\nWhat you can expect from us\nMeaningful 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.\nHealthcare coverage. We have a full benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance, and a paid parental leave program.\nLearning and development. Access the resources you want to help you grow in your role by utilizing our $750 yearly training stipend.\nGrowth. 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.\nOur Values: \nWork 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. \nBe 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.\nLove 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. ­ \n Use of AI for Recruitment\nCurrently, Forma.ai does not useartificial intelligence as part of our recruitment process, specifically but not limited to the screening, filtering and shortlisting of applicants. \nOur commitment to you: \nForma 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.\nWe thank all candidates for their interest however only qualified applicants will be shortlisted.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7923,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Life insurance","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Sales Enablement","HR & Payroll Software"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-06-16T14:04:56Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"CA","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Positions approved through LMIA in 12 months: 1","filings_12m":1,"filings_prev_12m":0,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Global Talent Stream","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-03T21:10:52+00:00","sources":["ESDC: employers issued a positive LMIA"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":7,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.254,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":122,"expected_fill_days":36,"reasons":["conf:3","stale_co","ghost","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/forma-senior-back-end-engineer-data-platform","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/forma-senior-back-end-engineer-data-platform.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-18T01:58:36Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":3220,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-19T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":28482},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=28482"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fforma-senior-back-end-engineer-data-platform"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fforma-senior-back-end-engineer-data-platform"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fforma-senior-back-end-engineer-data-platform"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/forma-senior-back-end-engineer-data-platform\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fforma-senior-back-end-engineer-data-platform"}]}