Senior Full Stack Software Engineer

DescriptionOur Company
As the first and fastest-growing Canadian insurtech, software is at the heart of who we are. We recognize the transformative power of technology—especially when applied to a traditionally conservative industry—and use it to scale our business, improve operational efficiency, and make it easier for customers to interact with us.
Square One operates a fully custom software platform that supports customer-facing digital products, internal operations, and a nationwide contact center. As our business continues to grow across Canada, we are investing more deeply in the platforms, automation, and operational systems that support our engineering team and production environments.
Your Role
Square One's focus on technology and online customer experience is transforming how people buy home insurance. By starting from scratch, we've developed a modern web-based software platform that encompasses all aspects of our business, including:

• Customer management
• Online sales and support
• Policy lifecycle management
• Claims reporting and fulfillment

As a Senior full-stack software developer, Square One will really hit your career sweet spot. We're big enough that you'll have access to all the resources you need. You'll also have the satisfaction of your code being used by thousands of customers every day. On the other hand, we're still small enough that we don't have a bunch of bureaucracy, and you'll never get lost in the crowd. Each member of the team is critical to our success and is treated accordingly. And while we're very nimble, we're also focused on the long-term. That means we would rather take the time to do things right than to rush out a new feature.
One of the things you'll enjoy most about Square One is the supportive team environment. You know you're never set up for failure; instead, you get all the coaching, mentoring, training, and tools you need for continued success – whether you opt to work out of our office in downtown Vancouver or remotely.
Your ResponsibilitiesWe seek to match your technical interests to the challenges we have at hand. Depending on your skills and experience, your focus could include:

• Front-end web application written in Vue.js 3.
• Back-end API integrations using PHP.
• Billing and payment processing.
• Premium calculation algorithm enhancements.
• iOS & Android mobile app development utilizing Ionic.

Rest assured, you won't be pigeonholed at Square One. We have a small team, and we're keen to cross-train in all areas of our codebase.
To give you a sense of the technologies used at Square One, our Symfony-based platform is written entirely in object-oriented PHP 8.4, uses the Propel ORM to interact with our MySQL backend, and is hosted on AWS. Our customer-facing front-end is written in Vue.js 3 and served through Ionic (for web, iOS, and Android apps). The system integrates with Amazon Connect, our call center's Cloud-based telephony system, which we manage in-house.
Our Technology Stack
Core Application Stack:

• Backend: PHP, MySQL
• Frontend: Vue.js, Ionic (web, iOS, Android)
• Local Development: Docker
• Scripting & Tooling: Bash, Node.js, TypeScript

Cloud Platform:

• AWS Infrastructure: EC2, RDS, S3, VPC, Route 53
• Infrastructure as Code: AWS CDK and CloudFormation
• CI/CD: GitHub, AWS CodePipeline
• Event & Workflow Systems: EventBridge, Step Functions, Lambda

Observability & Operations:

• Monitoring, logging, and alerting through Amazon CloudWatch
• Cost monitoring and operational alerts using AWS-native tooling

Customer Operations Platform:

• Amazon Connect powers our nationwide contact center and event-driven integrations.

Your QualificationsWhile we value education, it is most important to us that you have demonstrated experience building enterprise-grade, scalable object-oriented web applications with a back-end database.
Must-haves:

• In-depth experience using one or more PHP frameworks (ideally Symfony).
• Experience with modern JavaScript libraries.
• Strong knowledge of HTML/CSS.
• Strong knowledge of databases and SQL (ideally MySQL).
• Experience using an ORM such as Propel, Doctrine, or Eloquent.
• Knowledge of Vue 3, Angular, or React (ideally Vue 3).
• Experience implementing cybersecurity best practices.

Nice-to-haves:

• Familiar with Docker, Docker Desktop, or containerization.
• Experience with the LAMP stack.
• Prior experience within the insurance or financial services sectors.
• Experience with a range of Amazon Web Services offerings.
• Experience working in Unix/Linux environments (bonus points for SysAdmin level knowledge).
• Experience using GitHub for code version management and issue management.
• Experience developing mobile apps for iOS & Android using Ionic.
• Experience using software bundling tools like Vite, Webpack, or Gulp.
• Strong user interface/user experience design knowledge.
• Familiar with the LaTeX document preparation system.
• Experience with test automation tools like PHPUnit and Cypress.

Who You Are

• Articulate: you must be able to communicate complex technical ideas to a broad audience (i.e., from the CEO, to front-line sales agents, to product managers, to fellow software developers).
• Detail-oriented: At Square One, we really sweat the small stuff. Do you think about all the obscure boundary cases in your code? Do you enjoy getting to the bottom of every issue you come across? Do you enjoy stepping through code in a debugger to really see how it ticks?
• Proactive: “Not my area” isn't something that's likely to be said at Square One. If you see something that needs improvement, then you're expected to champion the cause.
• Enjoy a fast-paced work environment: While we are methodical in our approach, we are also relentless in our push to get things done and get code live and in the hands of our users.
• Comfortable working across application code, infrastructure, and operational concerns.

Your Compensation + BenefitsYou appreciate the fact that Square One personalizes your compensation and benefits in the same way it personalizes policies for its customers. Your very competitive compensation and benefits plan includes:

• A base salary range of $103,000 - $147,000 per year.
• 3 weeks, not 2 weeks, of vacation to start, and an additional week after only 3 years.
• The ability to work in-office, hybrid, or remote.
• Flexible medical, dental, vision and extended health care coverage.
• Short and long-term disability coverage.
• Participation in the corporate profit-sharing plan.
• We go out for dinner regularly, on the company's dime, to celebrate our successes.