Director of Services and Infrastructure

We believe in having a transparent hiring process to provide a fair and inclusive experience to all our candidates.

Our team is dedicated to ensuring you have a great candidate experience, and that starts with outlining our hiring process from start to finish so you know what to expect every step of the way (no surprises!)— click here to learn more!

Are you an experienced Director of Engineering looking for new challenges? Do you have a track record of building efficient, high-performing teams? Can you communicate effectively and work with a team to execute key results towards business goals? Are your problem-solving skills second to none? Do you get excited about learning new technologies and mentoring others? If this sounds like you, read on!

As the Director of Engineering – Services & Infrastructure , you will be working closely with members of the Engineering organization to build, manage, guide, and mentor multiple teams that are working on advancing Thinkific’s performance, reliability, and scalability. You’ll be partnering with our Director of Compliance and Director of Information Security to ensure our customers and their learners have access to a fast, reliable, and secure product at all times.

In this role, you will:
Directly lead, manage, mentor, and develop an amazing team of engineering team leads and managers
Continue to build our amazing Engineering team through the recruitment of top engineering talent
Work with our Engineering team leadership to mature our processes such as on-call, reporting, and risk mitigation
Contribute, manage, and optimize an engineering budget for our Trust initiatives to meet goals
Understand, improve upon, and champion our product lifecycle from concept to go-live
Recommend and help incorporate new technologies, tools, and processes to improve the way we work
Work with software vendors to ensure that the team has the tools needed to be successful
Develop departmental objectives for the Engineering team in the context of the entire organization and develop strategies (key results) to satisfy them (we use the OKR method)
Monitor progress towards departmental OKRs, report on the progress to the team and leadership at regular intervals, and take note of actions that led to success and failure

To be successful in this role, you likely:
Have 5+ years of leadership experience, with experience managing leaders in software engineering, particularly using an Agile process within a large-scale SaaS business
Have 5+ years of experience as a senior software developer
Demonstrate the ability to build cohesive, high-performing and healthy teams
Have proven relationship management and leadership skills—you don’t shy away from challenging or difficult conversations. Ability to mentor engineers and develop engineering leaders.
Effectively manage diverse, simultaneous projects of varying complexities at the same time
Have experience in strategy development and have proven the ability to execute on established strategies
Are experienced in project management, problem solving, and change management
Understand the importance of effective collaboration and have strong verbal and written communication skills

You might be the person we’re looking for if you have:
Are eager to learn and grow—you’ve likely attended a post-secondary institution, continue to seek opportunities to level up your skills, or have equivalent professional experience in a similar role
Experience with common SaaS software stacks (Ruby on Rails, Golang, and modern JS frameworks)
Experience managing cloud hosting environments (AWS, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, Fastly)
Contributed to discussion and optimization of the SDLC including CI/CD and observability tooling
A degree in Computer Science or a similar field (we will also consider less formally experienced applicants that still demonstrate a strong grasp of leadership abilities, technical skills, have past work to show and are eager to grow quickly)

Bonus points if you:
Have built a strong network of A-Players to support our recruiting and people development efforts

About us:
We’re about the results of online learning and the people along the way! Thinkific is a software platform that enables entrepreneurs to create, market, sell, and deliver their own online courses.

Our mission is no less than to revolutionize the way people learn and earn online by giving them the tools they need to turn their expertise into a sustainable business that impacts both them and their audience. We believe in meaningful, innovative work: we’re building and expanding an incredible product that empowers course creators around the globe while working collaboratively to learn and succeed together. Together, we’ve served over 50,000 course creators and more than 25 million students, and these numbers are growing each day!

Why we think you’ll like working with us:
Be part of a team of incredibly talented, passionate, and driven people focused on building and innovating on a best-in-class learning platform
Make an impact with your work—each person has an equal opportunity to contribute to our goals and every day, we get to see how Thinkific is empowering both course creators and their students
Join one of the fastest-growing companies in Canada and find opportunities to grow in your own career—offering advancement opportunities for our team members is important to us!
Contribute to Thinkific’s award-winning culture—we’re one of Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures and a certified Great Place to Work !
We offer competitive salaries, a comprehensive benefits package including health, dental, vision, and mental health coverage, and an Employee and Family Assistance Program to support the wellbeing of you and your family
Whether you’re at our Vancouver HQ or working from home , you’ll have the opportunity to build meaningful relationships with Thinkers on your team and across the company through team-wide events, meet and greets with new team members, and regular social events
Have fun with our team, even while we’re working remotely—join us for an online games session, virtual trivia and paint nights, at-home fitness challenges, or even an online coffee brewing demo!
Get additional health and wellness support through a lifestyle or health spending account to put your dollars where you need it most, whether that’s subsidizing your gym membership, covering out-of-pocket expenses, or getting new gear
Enjoy our open vacation policy and flexible work environment, because we know the importance of having a great work-life balance (and sometimes, you do your best work in slippers)
Learn and Grow is one of our values and we take it seriously, providing opportunities through lunch and learns, training, workshops, mentorship, and our $1500 education allowance
Grow your career AND your family at Thinkific—you’ll be taken care of with our parental leave top-ups as you add to your family
Meet the many @dogsofthinkific (and yes, they’re as cute and cuddly as they look)
Work with the hardware you’re most comfortable with, and upgrade or replace your system when you need to with our technology bonus
Get set up for success, whether that’s at the office or at home. Whether you need a monitor, laptop stand, keyboard, mouse, or even a desk, we’ll work to ensure you have what you need to do your best work
Be confident bringing your whole self to work—we’re proud to be an inclusive company with a diverse team and values grounded in ethics and equality
Here at Thinkific, we know that the different perspectives on our team have led to amazing ideas, more innovation, and, ultimately, our success as a company. Our team welcomes applicants of all backgrounds, experiences, beliefs, identities, and statuses. Whoever you are—we can’t wait to meet you!

Job Type: Full-time