Senior Software Engineer in Ottawa

H2 Analytics is redefining how professionals train for high-stakes environments through advanced simulation and data-driven tools. We build EASE (Exercise Architect Suite), a tool used by military, intelligence, law enforcement, and emergency response organizations to develop intelligence-focused mission-critical training exercises.

About the team and role: Before a training exercise starts, exercise staff build a fictional world of organizations, people, and equipment, and write the intelligence reports and other documents the training audience will receive. During the exercise, those documents go out on a schedule while the trainees work the problem. EASE is where staff build that world, write those documents, and run the exercise. Our mission is to make it easy to develop large-scale exercises without a heavy manual burden. This is a hands-on builder role; you’ll spend most of your time writing code, designing systems, prototyping, and shipping. We develop primarily in TypeScript and Vue, and host in AWS and on-premises. We ship often, value collaboration, and are driven by results rather than process. We use a lightweight Scrum practice and are dedicated to continuous improvement. The engineering team is 100% remote; our head office is located in Ottawa and you’re welcome to come in. This role can be located anywhere in Canada with flexible hours, though our core meetings are oriented on the Eastern time zone.

Problems we’re working on:

• Using generative AI to speed up the creation of training goals and content, evaluating models to improve what local models can do, and building AI tools that do what wasn’t possible before.
• Enabling users to better identify gaps in training competencies and data, linking scenario data into documents, disseminating training material however each customer wants it, and visualizing exercise data in meaningful ways.
• Connecting external and in-house data simulators to create complex, enriched training scenarios, and running those simulations at scale to measure how different conditions affect the outcome.
• Running the same product in AWS and in air-gapped customer data centers.

About you: You are a well-rounded senior software engineer with at least 6 years of experience building complex web applications and backend services as a full-stack engineer, with a minimum of 2 years at the senior level. You’re comfortable taking the lead on complex features, owning them end-to-end, and mentoring less-experienced developers.

We look for:

• Strong architecture and design skills.
• Full-stack development expertise with TypeScript and JavaScript.
• Advanced knowledge of reactive UI frameworks (React, Vue...).
• Advanced database experience (SQL / NoSQL), particularly with MongoDB, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, and geospatial data.
• Experience developing REST APIs.
• Deep experience with Linux and Docker containers.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

This role is only open to people able to obtain Secret security clearance in Canada due to the nature of our work.

Nice to have:

• Experience building and using generative AI and LLMs: prompt design, vector embeddings, deploying local LLMs.
• Modelling and simulation or operations research experience, such as design of experiments, Monte Carlo methods, sensitivity analysis, or running large batches of simulations on distributed compute.
• Python or R for statistical analysis.
• Experience architecting and maintaining production cloud infrastructure (AWS, Terraform, devops are a plus).
• Architecting microservices and large-scale distributed systems for performance, scalability, high availability.
• Experience interviewing software engineering candidates at a senior level.
• Software security background; authentication and authorization, OWASP top 10.
• A background in defence research, simulation engineering, or military service.

What you’ll own:

• Lead the architectural design and implementation of EASE features.
• Full-stack development including developing APIs, UX, automated tests, deployment.
• Gathering stakeholder feedback and defining features to meet customer needs.
• Writing proposals, carrying out code experiments, and building prototypes.
• AWS and on-premises deployments.

What you’ll help with:

• Identify and push for technical and process improvements.
• Influencing what we build and how we build it.
• Improving our CI/CD and simplifying deployment and administration.
• Maintain and diagnose our software as it runs in production in AWS or in customer data centers, in support of our customers.
• Drive performance and scalability improvements.

What you’ll teach:

• Advanced coding practices and architectural patterns.
• Mentoring junior developers and fostering best practices.
• Review and approve code contributions from team members, ensuring quality, security, compliance.

What you’ll learn:

• An appreciation for how defence, intelligence, and emergency response teams train for real-world scenarios.
• How to build a team in a small, fast-moving startup.

What we offer:

• The annual base salary for this role is between CAD $120k and $170k, based on skill and experience.
• Extended health insurance for employees and their dependants.
• A generous and flexible vacation policy. We encourage time off to recharge.
• Company equity in a growing startup.
• Fully remote.
• We are committed to creating a supportive and diverse company.

Vacancy Status: This is a new role on our team for which we are actively recruiting.