Software Architect, Core Engine

About Kinaxis

Are you looking to join an innovative, market-leading company where you can truly elevate your career? At Kinaxis we are serious about culture, we are serious about technology, we are serious about customers, and we are serious about not taking ourselves too seriously. If you are looking to be part of an incredible growth story, then we might just be the place for you!

In 1984, we started out as a team of three engineers. Today, we have grown to become a global organization with over 2000 employees around the world, 6 global office and a best-in-class HQ in Ottawa, Canada. As winners of several Top Employer awards globally, we are proud to work with our customers and employees towards solving some of the biggest challenges facing supply chains today.

Kinaxis is a global leader in modern supply chain orchestration, powering complex global supply chains, and supporting the people who manage them. Our powerful, AI infused platform provides full transparency and visibility across end-to-end supply chains, enabling our customers to make faster, better decisions. We are trusted by renowned global brands to provide the agility and predictability needed to navigate today’s volatility and disruption. With more than 40,000 users in over 100 countries, we are expanding our team as we continue to innovate and revolutionize how we support our customers.

Location

Canada or USA

• Ottawa and Toronto, Canada - Hybrid
• Other Canadian or USA locations - Remote

About the role

Kinaxis Maestro manages and predicts what is needed to effectively balance supply and demand for some of the world’s most complex supply chains. We are seeking a Software Platform Architect to lead the evolution of our Maestro platform toa cloud‑native architecture with experience designing database engines, storage engines, distributed databases, query execution systems, or other large-scale data infrastructure platforms.

As part of the Product R&D organization, you will define and drive the architectural foundations that enable massive scale, elastic performance, and cost‑efficient execution across Kinaxis’ next‑generation backend platform that underpins Maestro.

This role is central to Kinaxis’ platform modernization — re‑architecting core data, query, and execution capabilities to operate natively in the cloud while preserving the performance, reliability, and customer trust that define our platform.

Vacancy Status

This is an existing job vacancy

What you will do

You operate comfortably across the full architecture lifecycle - from conceptual design and deep technical exploration to hands‑on implementation and production hardening. You are driven by complex systems problems and understand how to balance performance, scalability, cost, and operational resilience in real‑world cloud environments.

You will design and evolve highly scalable, distributed, cloud‑native architectures that power core platform capabilities. You think naturally in terms of data flow, consistency models, latency trade‑offs, fault tolerance, and system boundaries, and you continuously push for simpler, more robust, and more performant designs.

You will contribute to the architectural direction for the backend platform, shaping how large‑scale data processing, query execution, and platform services are built and evolved. This includes setting standards for cloud‑native design, guiding decisions around distributed systems patterns, and ensuring architectures are both extensible and production‑ready.

You will act as a technical authority across Product R&D, influencing architectural decisions that span cloud infrastructure, core platform services, and data systems. You will mentor senior engineers, elevate architectural rigor across teams, and foster a culture where architects are deeply accountable for the systems they design.

You are a pragmatic, hands‑on architect. You write code, validate assumptions through prototypes, and work closely with engineering teams to ensure designs translate into reliable, scalable implementations. You value clarity, simplicity, and execution over theoretical perfection.

You are a strong collaborator and communicator, able to explain complex architectural concepts to engineers, product leaders, and executives alike. You bring structure to ambiguity and guide teams toward solutions that align technical excellence with business outcomes.

What we are looking for

• Advanced education in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. Deep, demonstrated experience building large‑scale, distributed cloud systems is required
• We are implementing our own distributed database and query engine, specifically for supply chain data and use cases. We are looking for extensive experience designing, implementing and evolving core database, storage, indexing, query execution, caching, consistency, replication, or metadata-management capabilities in large-scale, distributed production systems.
• Extensive experience designing and building large‑scale, distributed systems in production environments.
• Strong background in data‑intensive systems, such as distributed data processing, distributed data bases, query engines, or platform‑level data services.
• Deep expertise in cloud‑native architectures, including scalability, elasticity, fault tolerance, and cost‑aware design.
• Proven ability to translate complex technical challenges into clear architectural designs that can be implemented and evolved over time.
• Ability to work with ambiguous requirements and translate them into clear, robust, well-communicated architectural designs that are aligned with stakeholders expectations.
• Hands‑on experience with modern cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, or GCP) and their core infrastructure services.
• Proficiency in modern programming languages (Go) and/or other high‑performance backend languages (C++).
• Solid understanding of system performance, concurrency, consistency models, and operational trade‑offs in distributed environments.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across multiple teams and operate effectively as a senior technical leader.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex system designs to diverse audiences.
• Ability to find opportunities to accelerate the SDLC through innovative application of AI or other tooling, while upholding architecture consistency, secure design, and code-quality standards.
• Ability to review AI-generated code rigorously for correctness, architectural fit, integration risk, and edge case support with a growth mindset and bias for experimentation.

Nice to Have

• Experience designing platforms that support AI, agentic systems, or advanced analytics at scale.
• Exposure to Data Fabric, semantic layers, or extensible platform architectures.
• Hands‑on experience with modern cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, or GCP) and their core infrastructure services.
• Track record of technical leadership through internal platforms, publications, patents, or open‑source contributions.

#Senior; #LI-EM1

Work With Impact: Our platform directly helps companies power the world’s supply chains. We see the results of what we do out in the world every day, when we see store shelves stocked, when medications are available for our loved ones, and so much more.

Work with Fortune 500 Brands: Companies across industries trust us to help them take control of their integrated business planning and digital supply chain. Some of our customers include Lockheed Martin, Unilever, P&G, ExxonMobil, Cisco and more.

Social Responsibility at Kinaxis: Our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee weighs in on hiring practices, talent assessment training materials, and mandatory training on unconscious bias and inclusion fundamentals. Sustainability is key to what we do and we’re committed to a long-term net-zero operations strategy. We are involved in our communities and support causes where we can make the most impact.

People matter at Kinaxis and here are some of the perks and benefits we offer, which may vary by location and employee:

• Flexible vacation and Kinaxis Days (company-wide days off)
• Flexible work options
• Physical and mental well-being programs
• Regularly scheduled virtual fitness classes
• Mentorship programs, training, and career development
• Recognition programs and referral rewards
• Hackathons

For more information, visit the Kinaxis website at www.kinaxis.com or the company’s blog at http://blog.kinaxis.com.

Kinaxis welcomes candidates to apply to our inclusive community. We provide accommodations upon request to ensure fairness and accessibility throughout our recruitment process for all candidates, including those with specific needs or disabilities. If you require an accommodation, please reach out to us at [email protected]. This contact information is for accessibility requests only and cannot be used to inquire about the status of applications.

Kinaxis is committed to ensuring a fair and transparent recruitment process. We use artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the initial step of the recruitment process to compare submitted resumes against the job description to identify candidates whose education, experience, and skills most closely match the requirements of the role. After the initial screening, all subsequent decisions regarding your application, including final selection, are made by our human recruitment team. AI does not make any final hiring decisions.