We’re building our team to advance the chiropractic profession in Ontario. We’re recruiting for a full-time Staff/Principal Software Engineer (Hands-On Technical Lead). If you are excited by this opportunity, we want to hear from you.
Seize the opportunity to learn and grow in a small and high-performing team; and have direct responsibility for key projects. This is a great opportunity to expand your experience and build your career.
Organization: OCA Aspire Canada Inc. (“Aspire”) https://ocaaspire.ca/
Position: Staff/Principal Software Engineer, Contract to Full-time
Location: Hybrid – Toronto, Canada (Citizenship Required)
Close: January 28 2026
The Opportunity
We are seeking a Staff / Principal Software Engineer to take long-term technical ownership of a mature SaaS platform and play a defining role in its evolution and modernization. This is a hands-on, senior individual contributor role with significant architectural authority and strategic influence.
This role is ideal for an experienced engineer (10–15+ years) who has operated at senior, staff, principal, or director levels and is looking to return to a deeply technical role with real ownership, accountability, and impact—without day-to-day people management.
You will work closely with our current contracted developer during a structured knowledge-transfer period and then assume primary responsibility for the platform’s technical direction, quality, and long-term health.
About Aspire
Aspire is a Canadian healthcare technology company providing modern, cloud-based practice management and electronic health record (EHR) software to chiropractic-led clinics.
Originally developed to support the profession through the Ontario Chiropractic Association, Aspire has evolved into a standalone, multi-tenant SaaS platform serving over 500 clinics across Canada. In 2024–2025, Aspire successfully completed a major transformation—migrating legacy users to Aspire 3.0 and establishing a scalable, cloud-first architecture designed for long-term growth.
Today, Aspire is at a pivotal stage: the platform is live, the market is validated, and the focus has shifted from foundational build to refinement, scale, and innovation. Our mission is to deliver reliable, intuitive, and profession-focused software that clinics trust to run their practices every day.
We are a small, focused team that values ownership, thoughtful decision-making, and building software that genuinely improves how healthcare is delivered.
Role Scope & Impact
- Senior-most technical owner of a core production SaaS platform
- End-to-end accountability for architecture, code quality, performance, and reliability
- Hands-on contributor while setting standards and technical direction
- Key technical partner to product and leadership teams
- Significant influence over modernization strategy and engineering practices
This role functions at a Staff / Principal Engineer level, with authority to make architectural and technical decisions that directly impact product velocity, system stability, and customer experience.
Specifically, you will:
Initial Focus (First 6–12 Months)
During the first year, you will focus on:
- Developing a deep understanding of the existing platform, architecture, and operational context
- Leading a structured transition of ownership from the contracted developer
- Stabilizing the platform by addressing reliability, performance, and technical debt
- Improving code quality, test coverage, and development workflows
- Identifying architectural risks and opportunities for incremental modernization
- Defining a clear, pragmatic front-end modernization roadmap
Success will be measured through improved system stability, performance, developer velocity, and a well-articulated technical roadmap aligned with business priorities.
Key Responsibilities
Platform Ownership & Architecture
- Own and evolve the platform’s architecture, balancing scalability, maintainability, performance, and business needs
- Define and guide long-term technical direction and modernization strategy
- Make informed architectural trade-offs and document key technical decisions
Hands-On Development & Quality
- Deliver high-quality, production-ready code across the stack
- Lead by example in code quality, testing, and maintainability
- Identify and resolve complex bugs, performance bottlenecks, and systemic issues
Engineering Standards & Practices
Establish and enforce best practices for:
- Code structure and design patterns
- Automated testing (unit, integration, end-to-end)
- CI/CD pipelines and release processes
- Observability, logging, and monitoring
- Secure coding and operational resilience
Technical Leadership & Collaboration
- Act as a technical partner to product, leadership, and stakeholders
- Translate business and product goals into technical plans and priorities
- Mentor and guide other engineers through code reviews, design discussions, and technical coaching
- Lead technical discussions and influence engineering culture beyond immediate deliverables
Required Skills and Experience
Core Technology Stack (Required):
- Java
- Spring Framework
- AngularJS
- MySQL
Additional Experience (Strongly Recommended)
- Modern front-end frameworks (Angular, React, Vue)
- Spring Boot and modern Java application design
- Cloud platforms (Azure preferred)
- Containerized deployments and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
- RESTful and/or GraphQL API design
- Messaging and event-driven systems (Kafka, RabbitMQ)
- Experience modernizing legacy systems incrementally in production environments
What We’re Looking For
The preferred candidate will have a bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field or equivalent; with the following skills, experience, and abilities:
- 10–15+ years of professional software development experience
- Azure certifications considered an asset
- Proven experience owning and evolving complex, production-grade systems
- Deep understanding of software architecture, design patterns, and system trade-offs
- Strong technical judgment and pragmatic decision-making skills
- Ability to balance technical excellence with business and delivery constraints
- Comfortable operating with ambiguity and incomplete information
- Excellent communicator able to influence both technical and non-technical stakeholders
- A builder mindset with a strong sense of ownership and accountability
Why Join Us
- Meaningful, long-term ownership of a core SaaS platform
- A deeply hands-on senior technical role with architectural authority
- Opportunity to modernize and shape the future of a mature product
- High-impact individual contributor role with Staff / Principal-level scope
- Growth path into broader technical leadership or formal engineering leadership, depending on interest
- Fully remote role within Canada
Compensation & Benefits
Competitive compensation package including performance bonus and comprehensive health benefits plan
Are you excited by this opportunity?
Consider this outstanding opportunity to help shape the future of our software engineering product. If you want to make a difference, submit your résumé and cover letter to Deborah Gibson, Director, Corporate Administration by January 28, 2026. Qualified candidates will be contacted by February 2, 2026 to schedule an interview.
Aspire Mission and Vision
Our Vision - We aspire to be a modern, enterprise-wide business solution that helps to elevate patient care and practice management while fueling collaboration.
Our Mission - To empower chiropractors and other health professionals with an integrated, secure solution so they can efficiently deliver enhanced patient care and manage their practice.
