Senior Backend Engineer

About Inspiration Commerce Group (ICG)

We’re a team of \~25 people who’ve done 6 acquisitions in 18 months and scaled from $0 to \>$75M in revenue. We’re a global group with businesses across the US, UK, and EU. We buy and build companies that help people find and buy the products they love. Our portfolio includes leading fashion marketplaces like Italist and Verishop, affiliate marketing platforms like Stylight and MyBestBrands, B2B technology solutions like Bonsai and leading Creator marketplaces like Everpress.

About this Role

We're looking for a (Senior) Backend Engineer to join our growing Engineering team. We are centralizing all of our marketplace businesses onto a single technology platform — in this role you will help to build out the backend and middleware layers of that platform in Nodejs, to support the businesses that help millions of shoppers find \& buy the products they love.

We currently use Nodejs for the backend, MongoDB/Postgres, and AWS.

Things You'll Do

Own features from end to end, taking ideas from business stakeholders and bringing them to life. You will scope, build, test and deploy, and are comfortable doing so without PM support.

Ship quickly. We work fast and ship fast — you will focus on making iterative improvements and moving the needle with each deploy.

Augment your work with AI. You'll work faster and smarter by using AI tooling to augment your work wherever possible. This isn't about getting more done or replacing people, it's about ensuring your time is spent on the hardest, highest-value projects.

Attitudes

We don't care what your current job title is, if you've worked in FAANG, or whether you have a CompSci degree. We do care about you being tightly aligned with our operating principles:

You’re competitive and love to win. You’re competitive and are always looking for an edge. You have a high bar (some would say “unrealistic”) for yourself and those you work with.

You do whatever it takes. You’re willing to do what others won’t to achieve what others can’t. What we’re doing is hard. Really hard. Sacrifices are required in the pursuit of greatness, and we’re chasing greatness.

Founder-level ownership. If something breaks, you fix it. If there’s an opportunity, you chase it. You (and we) never say "that's not my job".

Curiosity with teeth. You don’t just ask why something isn’t working — you dig until you know, then you ship a fix.

AI to augment. You're already using AI workflows and tooling to augment your work and speed things up, and are ready to share that knowledge with the team.

You ask for forgiveness, not permission.

You’re a self-starter. You love being in the weeds and rolling up your sleeves to get things done. You never let roadblocks get in the way of getting things done; the laws of physics alone dictate what you can do.

Who this role is right for

An experienced engineer who enjoys building, prototyping, and shipping.

Someone who enjoys seeing the impact of their work, and then iterating on it to make it even better.

Someone who knows when something needs to be perfect vs. when something needs to just get done, and can adjust the way they build accordingly.

Who this role is not right for

People who want a stable, predictable or repetitive role/set of tasks

People who like to work a slower/steadier pace with a desire for perfection

People who want to spend most of their time managing/planning/scoping

People who prefer stability over speed or “strategy over execution”

Logistics/Next Steps

Process: everyone will hear back within 3 days of applying. Our process involves calls with Brett (COO), Mackenzie (CTO), Corah (Product) and 1 engineer. You'll also complete a 1-day working session (paid, on-site in Toronto, if you're outside of Toronto we'll fly you in).

Work Setup: we operate Remote-first with some time spent In-Person together throughout the year as needed.

Working Hours: we trust team members to manage their own schedules and believe that taking time off to recharge makes you more productive in the long run. That said, we’re early enough that everyone’s work makes a big difference on the company’s trajectory. As a result, our team finds hard work fulfilling when we know it will be impactful. Typically, we check out around 6pm to protect personal time and then log back in later at night to finish anything that was left undone.