Senior Software Developer
First seen by Alion on Aug 18, 2026.
Knak is a mission-driven company
Why? Because our time is limited, our competition is fierce, and our margin for error is small. For us to have the greatest impact on the world, we need to be laser focused on our core mission, which is...
Empowering people to be creative.
That’s why Knak exists.
We are a world-class enterprise email and landing page creation platform with a focus on making successful and happy customers by providing them with an incredibly powerful, yet easy to use creation platform.
Our industry leading SaaS solution is built by Marketers, for Marketers. We know that it’s the small things that make the biggest impact and that emails and landing pages are where the rubber hits the road when it comes to Marketing Automation. We change the way Marketers work by making them more efficient, while improving conversion rate of their campaigns and helping them stay on brand.
Oh, and we have a bit of fun while doing it, too!
The Role: Senior Backend Software Developer
We’re looking for an experienced software developer to help scale the intelligence of Knak’s AI platform. In this role, you’ll design and build the robust systems that power AI agents-enabling them to analyze data, generate complex marketing assets, and deliver incredible value to our customers.
This role is highly impactful: you’ll contribute to architecture decisions, mentor teammates, and collaborate across engineering and product to shape the future of marketing automation.
What You’ll Be Doing
Build reliable APIs: Develop and maintain RESTful APIs with Laravel (PHP), ensuring testability, observability, and performance.
Create AI microservices: Build Python and Node.js services for AI agent hosting and LLM interaction, enabling seamless content generation.
Design across the stack: Apply object-oriented and functional programming to deliver scalable and maintainable systems.
Optimize databases: Tune queries and indexing for MySQL to improve speed and reduce latency.
Deploy to the cloud: Use AWS services (Lambda, CDN delivery, optimization) to build secure, scalable infrastructure.
Elevate code quality: Lead and participate in code reviews, maintaining high standards across the team.
Collaborate cross-functionally: Work with product, design, QA, and DevOps to align solutions with business needs.
Mentor engineers: Share knowledge and set a high bar for technical excellence.
What You Should Bring
6+ years of backend software development experience
Strong proficiency in PHP (Laravel), Python, Node.js, and MySQL
Expertise in RESTful APIs, TDD, CI/CD (GitHub Actions)
Experience with SaaS architecture, microservices, and AWS
Knowledge of observability, performance tuning, and scalability
Familiarity with Docker/Kubernetes
Excellent problem-solving skills and a collaborative mindset
Nice to Have
Experience in AI-powered product development
Background with LLMs, LangGraph, or AI agent frameworks
Prior experience in a fast-growing SaaS company
What We Offer
At Knak we have four foundational pillars. Culture, customers, product and growth. Culture is our number one pillar because we know that is at the core of building a strong company that can build amazing products and delight our customers. We do this with a laser focus on hiring the right people who are smart, positive and who want more than the typical nine-to-five offers.
We offer an extremely rewarding, second to none work environment as acknowledged by Ottawa’s Best Places to Work 2025! We show our investment in our people through our competitive salaries, equity in the company, great benefits, paid vacation, Life leave days (because life happens), team lunches and off-sites, and most importantly our commitment to YOUR career growth.
If this sounds like something you’re looking for, then we’d love to hear from you!
If you don’t see yourself fully reflected in every job requirement listed on the posting above, we still encourage you to reach out and apply. Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups often only apply when they feel 100% qualified. We strongly encourage applicants of all genders, ages, ethnicities, cultures, abilities, sexual orientations, and life experiences to apply. Knak believesin creating an inclusive, barrier-free working environment. If you require ANY accommodationto the interview process please contact [email protected].
At Knak, our recruitment process includes AI screening for keywords and minimum qualifications as well as v
ideo interviews which are transcribed with AI. Humans are still at the core of our decision making! Please note that this job post is for an existing vacancy.