Senior Software Engineer

Frugal is an AI-powered coding agent purpose-built to tackle one of the most persistent problems in tech : runaway cloud costs. Despite years of optimization efforts, cloud expenses remain high—and with AI workloads on the rise, the problem is about to get much worse. While existing tools help right-size infrastructure, they overlook a major driver of inefficiency : the application code itself.

That’s where Frugal comes in. Our agent analyzes source code, cloud billing data, and observability signals to pinpoint inefficient code patterns, recommend improvements, and even automate fixes via pull requests. Unlike traditional FinOps approaches—which struggle to engage developers—Frugal embeds directly into their workflow, making cost optimization a seamless part of the development lifecycle.

We’re looking for driven, curious, and talented people to join our team. Help us empower developers to reduce the cost of their applications. We offer competitive salaries, benefit programs, stock options and flexible work from home options. At this time we are focusing on hiring for our Ottawa, ON, Canada office with a hybrid work model.

About the Role

As a Senior Software Engineer at our seed-stage SaaS startup in Ottawa, you drive the development of critical platform features and systems that directly impact customer success and business growth.

You take ownership of complex technical challenges, from initial design through production deployment, ensuring solutions are scalable, maintainable, and aligned with our enterprise-grade standards.

In addition you translate complex cost engineering problems into scalable solutions while working directly with customer teams to deliver measurable cost reduction outcomes. You partner with developers, FinOps teams, and engineering leadership at these customers to implement (and extend) Frugal's platform, ensuring our AI-driven cost optimization capabilities integrate seamlessly into their existing workflows and deliver concrete business value from day one.

You mentor team members through code reviews, pair programming, and knowledge sharing while championing engineering best practices including automated testing, observability, and security compliance (SOC 2). You work closely with your team as well as the VP of Engineering and CTO to influence technical direction, evaluate new technologies, and contribute to the roadmap planning process.

You engage with customers and stakeholders to understand pain points and validate technical solutions that deliver measurable value. You embrace our culture of continuous improvement by staying current with industry trends, enabling rapid change through AI-driven development tools, and contributing to our agile development processes.

This role offers significant autonomy and growth potential as you help scale both our platform and engineering organization during this critical phase of company development.

Must Have :

• 5+ years of software engineering experience with backend systems and SaaS platforms
• Strong proficiency in modern programming languages (Python, Go, TypeScript / Node.js, or similar)
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
• Experience building enterprise-grade software with security considerations
• Ability to build trust and credibility with customer technical teams
• Strong empathy for customer challenges and commitment to driving their success
• Experience with CI / CD pipelines, automated testing, and deployment practices
• Knowledge of observability tools and practices (logging, monitoring, metrics)
• Strong communication skills for cross-functional collaboration and customer interactions
• Experience working in fast-paced, early-stage environments with ambiguous requirements
• Ability to translate business requirements into technical solutions
• Understanding of enterprise software integration challenges and solutions
• Comfort with wearing multiple hats and adapting to changing priorities
• Self-directed work style with strong ownership mentality

Nice to Have :