Lead Full Stack Developer (React / Next.js / Node.js / AWS)
Location: Hybrid — head office, 6240 Highway 7, Woodbridge, ON
Employment type: Full-time, permanent
Reports to: Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
About shoptravel
shoptravel is a proudly Canadian travel platform built to be more than a booking engine — your travel co‑pilot, combining personalized guidance, curated discovery, and genuine human care to make every step of the journey feel personal, trustworthy, and dependable. shoptravel brings over three decades of Canadian travel expertise together with technology that helps Canadians not just book travel but feel inspired to take it. Real expertise. Real people. A better way to travel.
About the role
We are looking for an experienced and highly motivated Lead Full Stack Developer to design, build, and lead the development of modern, scalable, cloud‑native applications that power customer‑facing products, AI‑enabled platforms, and internal business solutions.
This role combines full‑stack software engineering, solution architecture, cloud‑native development, platform engineering, microservices architecture, and AI integration to deliver secure, resilient, and high‑performing systems. You will play a key role in shaping technical direction, establishing engineering best practices, and mentoring developers, while remaining hands‑on in the design and implementation of complex solutions.
The ideal candidate is a strong technical leader with deep expertise in building modern web applications using Next.js, developing scalable backend services with Node.js, and architecting distributed microservices on AWS. You are passionate about software craftsmanship, system design, and developer experience, and you thrive in environments where you can influence architecture, improve engineering standards, and deliver business value through technology.
Working closely with product, architecture, engineering, AI, and business stakeholders, you will help shoptravel turn ideas into scalable, secure, and maintainable solutions that improve operational efficiency, accelerate product delivery, and create exceptional user experiences. You will also help drive the adoption of modern engineering practices, including AI‑assisted development, automation, observability, DevSecOps, and cloud‑native design patterns.
What you will do
- Design, build, and maintain scalable full‑stack applications using React, Next.js, Node.js, GraphQL, and modern web technologies
- Design and develop backend services, REST and GraphQL APIs, and application workflows that support internal business operations and platform capabilities
- Build and optimize microservices‑based, event‑driven, and cloud‑native systems and service integrations for scalability, reliability, and performance
- Contribute to solution and application architecture, system design, architecture reviews, and technical governance, aligning with enterprise microservices, cloud, and integration standards
- Translate business and technical requirements into scalable, secure, and maintainable solutions
- Design modern AWS cloud‑native and serverless architectures using services such as Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, ECS, EC2, and S3
- Develop responsive, mobile‑friendly web applications following usability, accessibility, and engineering best practices
- Integrate AI and LLM capabilities into internal business applications, workflows, and operational processes
- Partner with product management to align technical execution with business priorities and balance technical debt with feature delivery
- Participate in deployment automation, CI/CD pipelines, observability, and platform engineering improvements
- Continuously evaluate and improve application performance, usability, reliability, scalability, and security
- Lead the adoption of AI‑assisted development workflows — code generation, code reviews, and engineering productivity — and mentor team members through code reviews and engineering standards
What you bring
- Five or more years of professional software development experience, with a proven track record of designing and delivering scalable, cloud‑native applications and backend systems
- Strong hands‑on experience across the modern stack:
Frontend — React, Next.js, TypeScript, and responsive, mobile‑first web development
Backend — Node.js (TypeScript), REST and GraphQL APIs, microservices, and distributed systems
- Strong grasp of solution and microservices architecture, system design, SOA, event‑driven and cloud‑native systems, scalability, resiliency, and security best practices — with proven experience building and supporting distributed cloud‑native applications and contributing to architecture and system design decisions for enterprise applications
- Hands‑on experience designing and building AWS cloud‑native and serverless applications using services such as Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, ECS, EC2, and S3
- Experience with modern data architectures, including MongoDB, PostgreSQL, schema evolution, performance tuning, and query optimization
- Experience with Docker, Kubernetes (or equivalent), CI/CD pipelines, and modern deployment practices
- Experience using AI‑assisted development tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, and OpenAI Codex, including AI agent workflows, code generation, and engineering productivity tools
- Demonstrated ability to critically evaluate AI‑generated outputs through testing, validation, peer review, and engineering best practices
- Strong problem‑solving, communication, and stakeholder collaboration skills, and the ability to contribute to architecture and engineering standards
Nice to have
- Experience working in Agile/Scrum software delivery environments
- Experience with observability, monitoring, logging, and distributed tracing tools
- Exposure to platform modernization, technical transformation, and scalable architecture initiatives
- Experience collaborating across product, architecture, and engineering teams in fast‑paced environments
- A passion for modern software engineering, cloud‑native development, AI‑enabled engineering workflows, and scalable microservices systems
What success looks like
You will help design and deliver reliable, cloud‑native systems that power our business operations and improve user productivity— shaping architecture, engineering practices, and AI‑assisted development workflows as shoptravel grows.
What we offer
- A genuine ground‑floor opportunity to help build the technology behind a proudly Canadian travel brand
- A founder‑led team, drawing on over three decades of Canadian travel expertise
- The chance to shape technical direction and engineering culture from an early stage
- Competitive compensation and a comprehensive benefits package
- Room to grow as the company grows
shoptravel is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to building a diverse, inclusive team. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process — please let us know how we can help.
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