WHO WE ARE

Fora is one of the world’s largest community networks with over 1,000 online communities and the tech platform that powers them. Fora's mission is to enable enthusiasts to share expertise and discover products for their interests. Our 70 million plus monthly active users make informed shopping decisions in automotive, health, home, powersports, outdoor, and technology on sites like ArcheryTalk, AVS Forum, BimmerFest, Knitting Paradise, and WatchUSeek. Fora is a business division of VerticalScope Holdings Inc., a publicly-traded company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE: FORA). Fora has over 50 employees in the US and Canada with diverse backgrounds from startups and big tech. If you thrive in an environment that celebrates authenticity, scrappiness, and curiosity, Fora is the place for you.

THE ROLE

Are you excited by solving technical challenges that come with building a scalable, highly available platform used by millions of users? Come and join us at Fora! Fora is looking for an experienced engineer who will drive the modernization of our legacy systems and the creation of a brand-new forum platform. 

This role is key to our business and one of our top initiatives around transformation and user experience. Our forum platform is at the forefront of the company's strategic investment. The modernization will provide a seamless and intuitive experience within each community forum. This is a unique opportunity where you will balance the art of handling debt and delivering new features.

You will scope the entire application architecture, evaluate the short-term versus long-term solutions, measure the tech debt, and set realistic goals for documentation, refactoring, test coverage, and greenfield development. You will champion a collective code ownership culture and continue our practice of rapid experimentation.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

- Lead a small team of software engineers to begin the modernization of our forum platform and lay the groundwork for future innovation.

- Envision a robust system design, create detailed documentation, and decide on tradeoffs between technical approaches. 

- Architect and build robust software that can handle high request volumes with low latency. 

- Maintain legacy systems in PHP and Golang. Evaluate and select a language, framework, and technologies for new development. 

- Identify technical issues and follow up with root-cause analysis and resolution. 

- Define key application metrics and track and report progress. Collaborate cross-functionally, effectively communicating technical vision and strategy.

- Review code, support continuous improvement, and investigate alternatives. 

- Inspire and mentor engineers to build a high-performing engineering culture. 

ABOUT YOU

- 10+ years of software engineering experience demonstrating a deep understanding of diverse technologies and architectural patterns.

- Expertise in one or more languages such as Go, Rust, PHP.

- Experience with relational databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Spanner.

- Experience with NoSQL and other datastores like BigTable, Firebase, Redis and Pub/Sub or Kafka.

- Experience crafting high-quality, maintainable software through Test-Driven Development (TDD) practices, ensuring meaningful test coverage.

- Interest in using multiple programming languages and a commitment to continuous learning. 

- Proven ability to dissect and master complex systems, identifying opportunities for improvement.

- Passion for mentoring and coaching engineers, cultivating technical excellence within the team.

- Experience leading technical projects through all phases of the software development lifecycle.

- Strong track record of building and deploying high-performance, scalable applications in a cloud environment such as Google Cloud Platform.

- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to navigate ambiguity and drive impactful change.​​

- Ability to occasionally travel to the US or Canada.

YOU’RE A GREAT FIT IF YOU ALSO HAVE

- Excitement for online communities and alignment with the Fora mission to help people have fun finding products for their hobbies.

- Early startup experience.

LIFE AT FORA

Fora is remote-first. We have offices in Toronto, ON, Canada, and the United States. We believe that competitive benefits are an important investment in our people and culture. Examples include:

* Full suite of health benefits (medical, dental, vision), including HSA/FSA (USA) and HCSA (Canada) programs

* Retirement savings account

* Employee Stock Option Program (ESOP)

* 11 holidays

* Flexible working hours and unlimited vacation

* Parental leave, long-term disability, AD&D insurance, and Employee Assistance Program

* Career development stipend

* Annual company-paid offsite and quarterly onsite team meetings

EEO

Our company values diversity of thought and believes diverse teams make innovation possible. We work on complex, difficult problems with no linear or clear solutions. We believe that a diverse team can bring different perspectives and approaches, and whose experiences reflect the full set of clients we seek to serve. As such, Fora is committed to a diverse representation among our employees.

If you require disability-related accommodation during the application, recruitment, and interview process, please let us know and we will work with you to make all possible adjustments to suit your needs.