Spare is a fast-growing, successful startup. We thrive on innovation, rapid execution, and delivering top-tier products that make a real impact in the transit industry. We are now seeking a Staff Software Developer to join our Motion team and help advance our state-of-the-art routing and optimization algorithms.

As a Staff Software Developer on the Motion team, you will play a critical role in designing and building complex product experiences that help our customers understand and interact with our transit system, while also contributing to our core routing engine and distributed systems. This is a balanced role with approximately 75% individual contribution and 25% technical leadership and mentorship responsibilities. You will work on building intuitive interfaces for complex operational data while ensuring the underlying distributed systems can handle real-time updates efficiently.

Given the nature of our business, this role requires someone who can balance technical expertise with strong product sensibilities, creating solutions that are both technically sound and accessible to end users. The role includes some travel as part of the job responsibilities – specifically, up to 4 customer site visits per year to gain firsthand insights, plus participation in our biannual engineering hackathons in Vancouver (totaling up to 6 trips annually).

Department: Engineering
Employment Type: Full Time
Location: Remote (Canada)
Workplace type: Fully remote
Compensation: $182,076 - $201,003 / year
Reporting To: Caitlin Hutnyk

About this role ✨

As a Staff Software Developer you will:

Own the design and development of core routing engine features from inception to launch
Work with traffic, routing, and vehicle routing algorithms to solve complex optimization problems
Architect and implement high-performance, scalable distributed systems
Design and develop intuitive visualizations and interfaces for complex operational data
Lead technical direction for significant portions of our Motion platform
Work with a functional language (Scala) around 30% of your time
Actively mentor engineers of all levels and uplift team capacity
Collaborate cross-functionally with product managers, designers, and other software developers
Make high-impact technical decisions that lead our team to success while building complex products
Translate customer needs into technical implementations with strong product sensibility
Participate in architectural discussions and propose multiple solutions to complex problems
Ensure 99.99% uptime and maintain exceptional system performance
Travel to customer sites (up to 4 times per year) and attend engineering hackathons in Vancouver (twice yearly)
Participate in team agile rituals and help improve engineering processes

About you ✨

You Have...

7+ years of software development experience, with at least 2+ years in a senior or lead technical role
Expert in backend technologies with strong distributed systems experience
Experience optimizing algorithms for performance and scalability
Experience with functional programming languages, particularly Scala
Deep understanding of algorithms, data structures, and computational complexity
Experience with real-time, complex, or distributed systems at scale
Strong background in cloud infrastructure (preferably GCP) and container orchestration (Kubernetes)
Experience with TypeScript and modern JavaScript frameworks
Experience building complex data visualizations and intuitive user interfaces
Demonstrated ability to mentor other developers and provide technical leadership
Strong problem-solving, debugging, and system design skills
Excellent communication and collaboration skills

It will be considered a plus:

Experience in the transit industry or with vehicle routing problems
Experience leading complex technical projects and initiatives
Background in optimization algorithms or operations research
Experience with GIS systems and spatial data processing

Benefits✨

Purposeful work: Be a part of a mission-driven company that is solving real-world problems and improving the lives of people around the world. Learn more about the impact we're making in our 2024 Global Impact Report
Growth Opportunities: Spare is growing fast and there is uncapped potential for rapid advancement of motivated high performers on our team! 🚀
Market-competitive pay: We benchmark roles annually to attract and retain top talent. For Growth roles, we also offer a competitive commission/bonus structure that rewards strong performance.
Stock options: Enjoy the feeling of ownership. All Spartians are provided stock options, so you can share in the growth and success of Spare!
Flexible work: Work remotely from anywhere in Canada, in your own time zone.
In-office collaboration: If you're in Metro Vancouver, you have the option to work out of our HQ located downtown, close to Waterfront Station. If you're located elsewhere, you'll have access to CA$200/month to spend on a coworking membership to work together with team members in your city.
Home office allowance: We recognize the importance of a productive home office setup to help you do your best work, which is why we provide a CA$1,000 home office allowance.
Team offsites & socials: Each team has an annual budget for travel and accommodations to get together for a team offsite or hackathon. Plus you have access to a CA$50 monthly budget to socialize with other Spartians in your city - go out for a meal or hit up a karaoke spot!
Health insurance: We offer a fully-paid health insurance package for you and your dependents that includes prescription drug, paramedical, mental health, dental, life insurance, travel insurance, and Employee Assistance Program.
Lifestyle Spending Account: We offer CA$500 per year Lifestyle Spending Account (taxable benefit), which you can use to get reimbursed for a variety of expenses including education, wellness, transportation, and childcare/pet care.
Paid time off: Along with your three weeks of annual vacation, we offer unlimited sick days and have company-wide shut-down days to help you rest and recharge.

Don't meet every single requirement?

Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification in the job posting.

At Spare, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment so we strongly encourage you to apply even if you don't believe you meet every single qualification outlined. We also do our best to respond to all applications we receive.

About Spare

Spare's mission is empowering everyone to unlock the potential of mobility.

Spare is the future of shared transportation. We’re revolutionizing how the busy mom from Dallas, the retired teacher from Oslo or the aspiring entrepreneur from Tokyo experiences transportation, by partnering with transportation providers around the world to enable worry-free, efficient, flexible, and automated on-demand solutions.

From the daily commute to non-emergency hospital visits, last-minute lunches, and leisurely trips to the museum, our technology makes people’s lives easier and transit more equitable both for those with specialized mobility needs and those without.

With Spare’s Platform, which includes a feature-rich admin web-panel, as well as rider and driver apps, transportation providers can break free from para and microtransit silos and provide holistic demand-responsive services that give each rider exactly what they need. We also help cities easily optimize their transit network so that the entire transportation ecosystem works better together.

At Spare, nothing is impossible. We think safe, affordable, scalable and eventually autonomous transportation is the right way forward. Join us for the ride!