Backend Software Engineer Intern Jobs in Kitchener, ON

Note: We have fullstack, backend and frontend open roles across product teams in Growth that are being hired through this job posting - so please apply if you are in either role. 

Why Growth at Faire?

Growth at Faire is different from growth at most companies.

We're not optimizing clicks on ads or chasing short-term engagement metrics. We're helping independent retailers discover products they love, build stronger businesses, and compete in an increasingly challenging retail landscape.

As a Growth Engineer, you'll work on some of Faire's most important customer journeys - from a retailer's first interaction with Faire through long-term engagement and success on the platform. You'll tackle complex product challenges involving discovery, onboarding, activation, retention, and marketplace dynamics.

You'll operate as a true product engineer, partnering closely with Product, Design, Data Science, Analytics, and Marketing to identify opportunities, launch experiments, and measure outcomes. The team moves quickly, but with the scale and complexity of a global marketplace serving hundreds of thousands of businesses.

This role offers a rare combination of customer impact, business impact, and technical ownership. You'll see the results of your work directly in the experience retailers have on Faire and in the growth of the businesses we serve.

About this role:

Faire is helping independent retailers thrive in a world increasingly dominated by large chains and marketplaces. Every day, hundreds of thousands of retailers use Faire to discover unique products, connect with brands, and grow their businesses.

As a Senior Engineer on our Growth team, you'll build products and experiments that directly influence how retailers discover, adopt, and engage with Faire. Your work will sit at the intersection of product, engineering, data science, design, and marketing, giving you an unusual level of visibility into both customer outcomes and business impact.

Growth is one of Faire's most important strategic areas. You'll identify opportunities, develop hypotheses, launch experiments, and use data to determine what works. Whether you're improving onboarding, increasing engagement, driving retention, or helping retailers realize value faster, you'll see the results of your work reflected in meaningful business metrics.

This is an ideal role for engineers who enjoy combining technical excellence with product thinking. You'll have significant ownership, move quickly from idea to launch, and help shape the future of one of Faire's most important product areas.

What you'll do:

• Own high-impact initiatives that improve retailer acquisition, activation, engagement, and retention
• Design, build, and iterate on experiments that influence key business outcomes
• Partner closely with Product, Design, Data Science, Analytics, and Marketing to identify growth opportunities and execute on them
• Collaborate with Marketing to optimize campaigns, paid spend, and marketing tech
• Use data to understand customer behavior, evaluate experiment results, and guide future investments
• Build scalable systems and product experiences that support Faire's continued growth
• Contribute to technical strategy while maintaining a high bar for engineering quality, performance, and reliability

What success looks like:

Within your first 6-12 months, you will:

• Launch and iterate on multiple growth experiments
• Become a trusted partner to product, design, and data science stakeholders
• Improve one or more key retailer growth metrics
• Lead a significant initiative from concept through launch and measurement
• Influence the roadmap and strategy for retailer growth at Faire

Qualifications:

We're looking for engineers who are excited about building products that create measurable customer and business impact.

You may be a great fit if you have:

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong experience building backend systems or modern frontend applications
• A track record of shipping customer-facing products and driving meaningful outcomes
• Excellent problem-solving and collaboration skills
• Comfort working in fast-moving, highly cross-functional environments
• Curiosity about customer behavior, experimentation, and data-informed decision making
• Strong product instincts - you think about the user and the business, not just the implementation.

Bonus points for:

• Experience with growth, experimentation, marketplace, or consumer product teams
• Experience designing and analyzing A/B tests
• Familiarity with product analytics and experimentation platforms
• Experience working on products at significant scale
• Experience working with Marketing or Paid Spend Optimization

Don't meet every qualification? We know great candidates come from many different backgrounds and experiences. If you're excited about the role, we'd encourage you to apply.

Technologies we use & teach:

Experience with similar technologies is welcome - you don't need experience with our exact stack.

• Frontend development (e.g., React, TypeScript/JavaScript, modern UI frameworks, performance optimization).
• Backend: Kotlin, Java, Guice, Jersey, Hibernate
• Datastores: MySQL, CockroachDB
• Infrastructure & Cloud: AWS (EC2, S3, RDS), Docker
• APIs & Data: HTTP, REST, JSON, Protocol Buffers
• Experimentation & Growth: Feature flagging systems, A/B testing frameworks, traffic ramping tools

Canada: the pay range for this role is $129,500 - $178,000 per year. 

This role will also be eligible for equity and benefits. Actual base pay will be determined based on permissible factors such as transferable skills, work experience, market demands, and primary work location. The base pay range provided is subject to change and may be modified in the future.