Software Engineering Manager

Helcim was founded with a mission at heart: to be the world’s most loved payment system. We believe that by offering small businesses in North America a decidedly human payment solution—where it is easier to sign up and use while being transparent and affordable—we can empower them to grow and prosper.

From the very start, we knew that we wanted to be different from every payment processor out there. We want the merchants we serve to feel supported and see us as a trusted partner rather than simply another “cost of doing business.” We are relentless in our pursuit to provide a radically transparent and honest payments solution that flat‑out saves business owners money, all while treating them like human beings.

We’re looking for a Manager, Software Engineering to lead our core platform teams. You will manage a team of 5‑8 talented software engineers and partner closely with a dedicated product manager to build, scale, and refine critical components of our backend systems. This role balances technical leadership, delivery execution, and people management.

This is a hybrid position based in our Calgary office.

• Drive technical direction and decision‑making with support from senior engineers.
• Oversee design reviews, implementation plans, and ensure technical alignment across projects and other engineering teams.
• Champion best practices in CI/CD, observability, automated testing, and system architecture.
• Ensure that all code is robust, testable, and scalable.
• Manage the operational health of your systems, including SLAs, incident response, and on‑call improvements.

• Translate business and product goals into clear technical plans and execution milestones.
• Balance feature delivery with platform investments and technical debt management.
• Collaborate with Product, Design, Dev Ops, and security teams to drive alignment and ensure delivery success.

• Promote a culture of engineering excellence and secure development.
• Continuously improve system performance and address technical vulnerabilities proactively.

• At least 3 years of experience managing software engineers, with a proven ability to coach, develop, and retain top talent.
• Previously spent at least 5 years as a hands‑on software developer, giving you the technical depth needed to support and guide your team.
• Committed to building inclusive, high‑performing teams and fostering psychological safety.
• Sets clear goals and expectations, conducts regular 1:1s, and provides thoughtful feedback and career guidance.
• Proactive in identifying and addressing performance issues constructively.
• Proactive in identifying and growing future leaders in the organization.

• Models resilience, transparency, and accountability in a startup environment.
• Curates curiosity and a growth mindset by encouraging experimentation and learning from failures.
• Promotes ownership and empowers your team to deeply engage in solving problems, not just executing tasks.

• Collaborates closely with Product, Design, and Dev Ops.
• Ensures engineers understand the “why” behind their work and feel connected to the customer impact.
• Represents your team effectively to leadership and contributes to broader engineering initiatives.

Not checking every box? Please apply anyway! We know that candidates have different experiences that may make them a great fit for this position and for Helcim. We believe that diversity and having an inclusive culture is not only the right thing, but key to our long‑term success. Diversity brings more experience, viewpoints, knowledge and insight about our future. We also want to provide an accessible interview process, so if there’s any accommodations that would make your experience more comfortable, please let us know.

• 3+ years of experience as a people manager in a software engineering environment.
• 5+ years of prior experience as a software developer, preferably in backend development.
• Strong understanding of system design, software architecture, and modern development practices.
• Bonus points for candidates that…