Lead developer Offres d'emploi - Waterloo, ON

Descartes Unites the People and Technology that Move the World

The need for efficient, secure, and agile supply chains and logistics operations has become ever more critical and complex. By combining innovative technology, powerful trade intelligence and the reach of our network, Descartes helps get goods, information, transportation assets, and people where they’re needed, when they’re needed.

We’re one of the most broadly deployed logistics and supply chain technology companies in the world. More than 26,000 customers around the globe use our cloud-based solutions to transform the way they move inventory and information to enhance productivity, better serve customers, thrive competitively, keep pace with evolving regulations, and respond to rapidly changing market conditions. Descartes is publicly traded (Nasdaq:DSGX, TSX:DSG) with headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and offices and partners around the world. With record financial performance for more than 16 years, we lead the industry in innovation investment. Every day, logistics service providers, manufacturers, retailers, distributors, and other logistics-intensive businesses of all sizes rely on our scale, stability, and comprehensive solution footprint to move what’s most important to them. Learn more at www.descartes.com.

We’re growing fast and invite you to join our amazing team.

Descartes GroundCloud is scaling a unified platform that powers safety, compliance, and operations for delivery fleets across North America. This role exists to accelerate the evolution of that platform — building reliable, high-impact features that directly improve how tens of thousands of drivers and dispatchers work every day.

Outcomes

• Within 60 days of joining, is delivering well-scoped functionality and fixes with normal code review support.
• Within 90 days, develops a working understanding of their team’s domain, the customer workflows it touches, and how customer support and escalation processes reach engineering. Can contextualize their technical work within the broader customer experience.
• After the initial 90 day ramp period, consistently meets sprint commitments on 85%+ of in-flight work, delivers well-scoped work independently, and proactively pulls in a senior engineer on cross-system or ambiguous work. 90% of contributions require no hotfix or rollback within 30 days of release.
• Within the first year, develops deep expertise in one system or product domain — becoming a go-to for that area — with working familiarity of adjacent systems. Gives useful, timely code review feedback, asks clarifying questions in technical design discussions, and improves documentation and test coverage in the areas they touch.
• Brings customer and business context into the work: asks why a feature matters, surfaces edge cases and gaps during grooming, and flags risk or scope concerns early.

Skills & Competencies
Technical Expertise

• 3–5 years of professional software development experience building and shipping web applications in a team environment.
• Strong proficiency in TypeScript/JavaScript (ES2022+), HTML, and CSS.
• Experience building modular frontends using a modern component-based framework — Vue 3 preferred; strong React or Angular experience transfers.
• Solid backend development experience in Python; Django and Django REST Framework preferred, not required.
• Builds and consumes RESTful JSON APIs, and can extend an existing API design consistently.
• Experience with automated testing in a TDD environment (Vitest, PyTest, or equivalent), where every PR includes appropriate unit and functional tests.
• Familiarity with PostgreSQL and working with relational data.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure on a major provider (GCP, AWS, or Azure), containerized services with Docker, and CI/CD pipelines.

Engineering Practices

• Writes clean, maintainable, well-tested code using modern workflows (feature flags, short-lived branches, daily merges).
• Comfortable operating in fast-paced, agile environments with frequent production deployments.
• Working understanding of common system design trade-offs — indexing, caching, N+1 queries, pagination — and recognizes when a decision needs a wider discussion.
• Solid working knowledge of Git, code review workflows, and collaborative development practices.

Collaboration & Communication

• Communicates progress, blockers, and trade-offs clearly to teammates, Product, and Design.
• Collaborates effectively with Product, Design, and Engineering to deliver end-to-end solutions.
• Actively participates in code reviews and contributes to team-wide improvements.

AI & Modern Development

• Comfortable leveraging AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Copilot, Claude Code).
• Applies sound judgment about when and how to use them — reviews generated code and understands what ships.

Nice to Have

• Experience with Vue 3 (Composition API, Pinia).
• Experience with Django and Django REST Framework.
• Experience with Playwright or another end-to-end testing framework.
• Experience with Kubernetes or other container orchestration.
• Hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform specifically (GKE, Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, BigQuery).
• Experience with PostGIS or other geospatial data tools.
• Exposure to AI/ML integrations, telematics, or real-time data systems.
• Experience with Google Maps API or other third-party mapping and routing platforms.
• Background in logistics, fleet management, last-mile delivery, or transportation compliance.

What’s in It for You

• Impact: Your work directly affects the daily experience and safety of tens of thousands of drivers.
• Ownership: High autonomy to design, build, and ship meaningful features end-to-end.
• Growth: Opportunities to expand scope into architecture, mentorship, and technical leadership.
• Environment: Fast-moving, collaborative team with a strong engineering culture and high standards.
• Technology: Modern stack including Vue 3, Python, GCP, Kubernetes, and real-time data systems.
• Visibility: Direct influence on product direction and exposure to cross-functional leadership.

Culture Add: TEAM Values
We value team members who communicate with transparency, sharing information openly and building trust across functions. You bring excellence and expertise to your craft, holding a high bar for quality while continuously improving your skills. You demonstrate accountability by owning outcomes, following through on commitments, and taking responsibility for results. You are driven by metrics, using data and experimentation to inform decisions and deliver measurable impact.

Aptitudes

• Smart: Able to quickly understand complex systems, connect ideas across domains, and make sound judgments under ambiguity.
• Curious: Actively seeks to understand customer problems, emerging technologies, and better ways of working. Doesn’t wait to be shown a better path before looking for one.
• Candid: Defaults to transparency even when it’s uncomfortable. Surfaces blockers early, admits mistakes quickly, and gives feedback that is honest, specific, and kind. Prioritizes the health of the project over the protection of their reputation.
• Low-Ego: Puts the team’s success above personal credit. Welcomes challenge to their ideas, gives way to better solutions regardless of who proposed them, and stays composed under friction rather than matching it.
• Product-Minded: Naturally curious about why a feature matters, not just how to build it. Thinks about user impact and business outcomes as part of the engineering process, not separately from it.

Location & Salary Range:This is a remote position, and the salary range for this role is $73,000–$90,000 CAD. Compensation information provided is a good faith estimate for this position only. Factors that may be used to determine your actual salary may include your specific skills as well as the years of experience you have. Similar positions located in different geographic regions will not necessarily receive the same compensation.

Join Us

As we scale, we’re looking for new doers, collaborators and innovators to join Descartes in uniting the people and technology that move the world as the Global Leader in Logistics and Supply Chain Technology. We’re entrepreneurial, hardworking, geeky-in-a-good way problem solvers. Guided by our values, we nurture a TEAM focused culture that invests in people and creates opportunities for advancement across a broad spectrum of career paths. We prioritize work-life balance and foster an environment with the space to take ownership, to be heard, and to carve a path for your individual accomplishments to help drive our success. At Descartes, everyone has a voice and the best idea wins, regardless of who makes it. We offer competitive compensation, great benefits, remote and flexible work hours, and the opportunity to join a company on an awesome mission with a great existing team and trajectory.

Descartes also has a deep sense of environmental responsibility. Learn more about how we helped our customers save over 552,000 metric tons of CO2 in 2020 by reducing fuel and paper consumption: https://www.descartes.com/who-we-are/social-responsibility-sustainability/environmental-impact. Join a team that’s committed to working with customers to conserve resources and enhance sustainability.

If you feel you have 70% of the qualifications we are looking for, and Descartes sounds like the team and the mission you want to be part of, apply now. We can't promise it will be a fit, but we do promise to consider your experience.

We conduct a mix of in-person and virtual interviews. Virtual interviews are held via Microsoft Teams and are recorded and transcribed. We may utilize AI tools to support our hiring team in notetaking, summarization, and internal training. AI tools are not used in our recruitment process for decision-making purposes. Recordings, transcripts, and notes are used for recruitment, including improvement of our process, and record-keeping purposes. Should you have any questions or concerns about our process, please connect with our hiring team in advance of scheduled interviews.

We are an Equal Employment employer. We do not discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religious creed, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, provincial, or local law. For more information about our commitment to equal employment opportunity, please review our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics at Descartes.com. Descartes is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to job applicants with disabilities. Applicants in North America with a disability who require a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process can email us at hrna@descartes.com. Provide your name and contact information along with the accommodation needed to assist you with the application process. Your request will be responded to as soon as possible. Reasonable accommodations will be determined on a case-by-case basis.