Software Engineer (Product - Backend)

ABOUT VASCO Vasco is the revenue context layer for AI agents. The product was built around one idea: confident is not the same as correct, and revenue decisions get made on confidence all the time. We structure your CRM, billing, calls, and support data into a semantic layer where every metric is sourced, every definition is locked, and every answer is deterministic, then build agents that take the manual busywork off people's plates. Our cofounders Guillaume and Seb already built and sold one startup together; today they are building the product they wished they had. Vasco's mission is to enable builders and GTM leaders to build a revenue engine that moves the business forward on data they can trust. Curious how we build? Take a look at our young engineering blog https://engineering.vasco.app/. ABOUT THE ROLE As a Software Engineer at Vasco, you'll build the brain of our agents: the core systems that give them the context, metrics, and playbooks they need to do their job. You'll join a small team of product designers and engineers reporting to our CTO, and work closely with our DevOps, Platform, Data, and Agent teams. The mission is to make GTM agents production-ready: reliable, fast, context-aware, and triggered at the right moment. You'll help shape solutions, then carry them through implementation to release. Twelve months in, winning means our agents run on systems you shaped, shipped, and saw adopted, and you’re able to tackle hard and crunchy problems. We're open to different levels of seniority. This is not an entry-level position: the problems are hard, the architecture is complex, and you'll own technical decisions and their implementation. We expect high autonomy and accountability at every level, and the scope you own grows with your experience. We'll meet you where you are, and what matters is that you make the team better and more capable of facing complex technical challenges. We're an early-stage startup working at the frontier of what agents can do in GTM. The path is often foggy, so you should be ready to bring clarity to it with your team, stretch beyond your comfort zone, stay open-minded, and wear more hats than your title suggests. You're AI-forward and you actively contribute to how we work with AI as a team. AI can make engineering lonely, and we push back on that with close collaboration, a fun environment, and a team that stays human. For transparency, the internal title for this role is Software Developer. WHAT YOU WILL DO - Backend-focused, full-slice development: Design, build, and ship the backend behind Vasco, including challenging parts like our context graph and our metric engine, where formula accuracy is key, and own full slices of work, including front end and data visualization when the feature calls for it, with human review sized to the risk. - Shaping to adoption: Shape solutions with designers, engineers, and GTM teammates in our Shape Up process, at the technical level and the business level, turn intent and design into the right context for Claude to implement, then instrument the release and follow adoption with your team. - Infrastructure, security, and data trust: Build services that handle customer revenue data safely and own the infrastructure and security of the parts you build, with guidance and tooling from DevOps, since the product's promise rests on data our customers can trust. - AI-native practices: Help build our backend harness and blueprints, the standards Claude reads so it builds the way we want, so more of your time goes to thinking, technical design, and shaping as AI handles more of the mechanical coding. - Incident ownership: Own your incidents: if you break something in production, you fix it, and you step up for your team the same way, communicating fast and transparently so we know about problems before customers do, because reliability is what we sell. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - Customer-facing systems. You've spent at least four years building systems that have touched customers, and your technical decisions trace back to the customer problems they solve. - Backend depth. You've designed, built, and operated production backend services, you design complete systems with the big picture of a feature in mind, and you're comfortable working on a data-heavy infrastructure product like ours. Experience with part of our stack (GCP, BigQuery, Node.js, TypeScript, Terraform) or its equivalents in other clouds is ideal. - AI-forward, with healthy skepticism. You've made AI coding tools central to how you ship, you own and can defend the output you ship, and you build the checks that let you ship with evidence. We'll ask you to show how you run your development lifecycle with AI. - High-stakes judgment. You've made decisions where the cost of being wrong was real, at the scale you've worked at, and you can walk through how you decided. - Communication clarity. You can turn technical trade-offs into clear business impact for any audience, from developers to cofounders. - Collaboration. You've pulled people into your work, you enjoy working as a team, and you contribute to the culture around you. WHAT'LL MAKE YOU STAND OUT - Rust or Go. You've shipped production services in Rust or Go, which we're seriously considering alongside TypeScript and Node for high-performance, type-safe workloads. - Context layers for agents. You've built data or context layers that AI agents consume in production, including context graph architectures. - Data engineering or DevOps range. You can drop into data engineering work (SQL, data modeling, pipelines) or DevOps work (infrastructure, CI/CD, observability) when the problem calls for it. - Semantic layers, BI tooling, and precision. You've worked with semantic layers or BI tools (we use Cube), and you enjoy formulas and getting the numbers exactly right. WHY VASCO - Small, high-caliber team, with experienced founders still building alongside you. - Early-stage pace and real ownership: the problems are unsolved, the path isn't fixed, and your judgment and capabilities shape what happens next. - AI-forward, both in how we work day to day and in what we build for customers. - Real autonomy, with room to experiment, pick up new skills, and take on projects outside your role: nobody here is boxed in. - Compensation within the top of the national market, stock options for every team member, uncapped paid time off, generous parental leave, and 100% employer-paid health benefits for you and your dependents. WHERE YOU'LL WORK This position is hybrid in Montreal— three days in-person per week (Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday) at WeWork Place Ville-Marie in downtown Montreal. HIRING PROCESS - Discovery Call with our talent partner (30mins) - Hiring Manager Interview (45mins) - Technical Stage (Challenge + 60 to 90mins Interview) - Final Interview with our CEO (30mins) We want you to feel informed and supported at every step. You'll always know where you stand, and we encourage you to ask us anything along the way. A note on AI: We use AI to help with note-taking during interviews. You can opt out anytime with no impact on your candidacy, and AI plays no part in our hiring decisions. On your side, feel free to use AI the way you would in the actual work, just use it thoughtfully. We're an AI company; we know polished AI output when we see it, and what we're really after is how you think and what you can do. Background check: The selected candidate will be required to complete a background check before starting. We hire on the strength of what you bring, regardless of who you are. Need an accommodation at any point in the process? Tell us at jobs@vasco.app and we'll make it work. _________ À PROPOS DE VASCO Vasco est la couche de contexte revenu pour les agents IA. Le produit a été bâti autour d'une idée: être confiant, ce n'est pas être dans le vrai, et les décisions de revenu se prennent sur la confiance tout le temps. Nous structurons tes données de CRM, de facturation, d'appels et de support dans une couche sémantique où chaque métrique est sourcée, chaque définition est verrouillée, et chaque réponse est déterministe, puis nous bâtissons des agents qui automatisent des tâches manuelles et répétitives. Nos cofondateurs Guillaume et Seb ont déjà bâti et vendu une startup ensemble; aujourd'hui, ils bâtissent le produit qu'ils auraient voulu avoir. La mission de Vasco: permettre aux builders et aux leaders GTM de bâtir un moteur de revenu qui fait avancer l'entreprise, sur des données auxquelles ils peuvent faire confiance. Curieux·se de voir comment on bâtit? Va faire un tour sur notre jeune blogue d'ingénierie https://engineering.vasco.app/. À PROPOS DU RÔLE En tant qu'Ingénieur·e logiciel chez Vasco, tu bâtiras le cerveau de nos agents: les systèmes centraux qui leur donnent le contexte, les métriques et les playbooks dont ils ont besoin pour faire leur travail. Tu rejoindras une petite équipe de designers produit et d'ingénieur·es relevant de notre CTO, et tu travailleras de près avec nos équipes DevOps, plateforme, données et agents. La mission est de rendre les agents GTM prêts pour la production: fiables, rapides, conscients du contexte et déclenchés au bon moment. Tu participeras au façonnage des solutions, puis tu les mèneras de l'implémentation jusqu'à la mise en production. Douze mois plus tard, réussir veut dire que nos agents roulent sur des systèmes que tu as façonnés, livrés et vus adoptés, et que tu es capable de t'attaquer à des problèmes difficiles et corsés. Nous sommes ouverts à différents niveaux de séniorité. Ce n'est pas un poste pour débutant·e: les problèmes sont difficiles, l'architecture est complexe, et tu prendras en charge des décisions techniques et leur implémentation. On attend une grande autonomie et une grande responsabilisation à tous les niveaux, et l'envergure de ce que tu prends en charge grandit avec ton expérience. On te rejoint là où tu es, et ce qui compte, c'est que tu rendes l'équipe meilleure et plus capable de faire face à des défis techniques complexes. Nous sommes une startup en démarrage qui travaille à la frontière de ce que les agents peuvent faire en GTM. Le chemin est souvent brumeux, alors tu dois être prêt·e à y apporter de la clarté avec ton équipe, à sortir de ta zone de confort, à rester ouvert·e d'esprit et à porter plus de chapeaux que ton titre le laisse croire. Tu as le réflexe IA et tu contribues activement à notre façon de travailler avec l'IA en équipe. L'IA peut rendre l'ingénierie solitaire, et on résiste à ça avec une collaboration étroite, un environnement amusant et une équipe qui reste humaine. Pour être transparents, le titre interne de ce poste est Développeur·se logiciel. CE QUE TU FERAS - Développement axé backend, tranche complète: Concevoir, bâtir et livrer le backend derrière Vasco, y compris des parties exigeantes comme notre graphe de contexte et notre moteur de métriques, où la justesse des formules est essentielle, et prendre en charge des tranches complètes de travail, front-end et visualisation de données inclus quand la fonctionnalité l'exige, avec une révision humaine proportionnelle au risque. - Du façonnage à l'adoption: Façonner les solutions avec les designers, les ingénieur·es et les membres de l'équipe GTM dans notre processus Shape Up, au niveau technique et au niveau des résultats d'affaires, transformer l'intention et la conception en contexte adéquat pour que Claude implémente, puis instrumenter la mise en production et suivre l'adoption avec ton équipe. - Infrastructure, sécurité et confiance des données: Bâtir des services qui traitent les données de revenu de nos clients de façon sécuritaire et prendre en charge l'infrastructure et la sécurité des parties que tu bâtis, avec l'accompagnement et les outils du DevOps, puisque la promesse du produit repose sur des données auxquelles nos clien…