Worknice (worknice.com) is a fast-growing, HR tech SaaS business founded by an experienced team. We offer competitive compensation and real work-life balance, with a remote-friendly environment (within Australia), minimal meetings, and a wide variety of work. We are proud to have built a team culture that people genuinely enjoy working in.
Our Mission
We’re on a mission to empower HR teams to tackle challenges as they arise, and create great workplaces that truly reflect their unique spirit.
About the role
Details:
- Senior Engineer (backend), reporting to the Head of Product.
- Sydney-based, remote within Australia welcome.
- Attractive salary with equity available for the right candidate.
- Full-time equivalent (FTE) negotiable.
Requirements:
- Extensive experience working on web applications.
- Experience with Postgres.
- Experience with Node.js and TypeScript.
- Willingness to take on responsibility for the end-to-end design and development of features.
- Great communication and collaboration skills (especially important for remote candidates).
- Ability to work autonomously.
Bonus qualities:
- DevOps experience.
- Experience with GraphQL.
- Experience working at a startup.
- Experience writing in-depth technical documentation.
- Experience in product management/ownership.
- UI engineering experience.
- Experience with Python.
- Data analytics/science expertise.
About the product
Overview
“Notebook” is the internal codename for Worknice’s flagship product. Notebook is a web-based SaaS product targeted at the following market:
- Core HR. Notebook focuses on solutions to problems experienced by HR teams. Notebook isn’t a generic solution like a spreadsheet or a project management tool.
- Mid-market. Notebook is optimised for organisations with 50–1000 employees that have a dedicated HR function. Notebook is not suitable for small organisations without full-time HR roles, nor large enterprise organisations that require bespoke solutions.
- Australian. Notebook has first-class support for the Australian tax and superannuation systems, common Australian attestations and other country-specific conventions. Notebook is not intended for use by organisations which aren’t based in Australia.
Tech stack
Languages/frameworks:
Databases:
Services:
- GitHub
- Vercel
- Supabase (database, file storage, auth)
- Axiom (logging)
- Jitsu (analytics, ETL)
- Postmark (email delivery)
- Retool (internal tools)
- Inngest (background tasks)
How we work
Directly responsible individuals
We don’t work in silos. Individuals are responsible for seeing work through from start to finish instead of each person doing their part and throwing it over the wall. That doesn’t mean everyone needs to be an expert in everything and it doesn’t mean no-one helps each other, but it does mean that if someone’s expertise is required to complete a piece of work you should pull them in to help out instead of passing it on like factory work. The flip-side of this is that each of us should lend our help to others as needed and balance our own workloads accordingly.
Ship early, ship often
We always want to avoid analysis paralysis. Instead, we want to get changes in front of users as quickly as possible and, by default, we lean towards cutting down scope over increasing budget/timeline or sacrificing quality. That helps us find out if we’re heading in the wrong direction quickly and adjust course accordingly.
Distributed by default
We’re a distributed team and we each work with a very high level of autonomy and responsibility. We make heavy use of Slack, Notion, Google Workspace, Linear, Figma, Plain and Productlane to communicate asynchronously and coordinate our work.
Role responsibilities
Provide backend engineering expertise
Provide technical guidance and support throughout the team for our backend systems:
- Assist other team members to implement product features that involve the database, API or other backend systems.
- Work closely with the rest of the Product & Engineering team to develop and maintain the backend infrastructure used throughout Worknice.
- Research, evaluate and recommend technologies for our backend infrastructure.
- Conduct code reviews to ensure the quality of backend code.
Manage backend services
Take ownership of the core backend services to ensure we’re using them as effectively as possible:
- Supabase
- Vercel
- Axiom
- Inngest
- Postmark
Develop “Worknice platform” features
Lead the design and development of features for third-party developers to build solution using Notebook:
- GraphQL API
- JavaScript SDK
- Data import and export
- Apps and integrations
- Dev portal (dev.worknice.com)
- Developer documentation
Develop “Payroll and expense tracking” features
Lead the design and development of payroll / expense tracking features:
- Syncing of person details (personal, tax, super, banking)
- Super fund lookups
- Employee payslips
- Expense tracking
- Worknice maintained integrations
Develop “Leave management” features
Lead the design and development of leave management features:
- Leave requests and approvals
- Leave balances
- Worknice maintained integrations
Optimise system performance
Optimise system performance to ensure our products are responsive and cost-effective:
- Work with the rest of the Product & Engineering team to define performance targets.
- Set-up and maintain monitoring to measure performance targets.
- Implement changes to improve performance to meet our performance targets.
Maintain security
Ensure strong security practices are followed throughout the organisation:
- Implemented and maintain security features.
- Work with the rest of the Product & Engineering team to ensure secure development processes are being followed.
- Work with the Head of Product to develop and implement security policies and procedures throughout the organisation.
- Work with the Head of Product to acquire and maintain security and privacy accreditations.
Develop “Insights and analytics” features
Lead the design and development of insights and analytics features:
- Data exploration tools
- Airbyte ETL connector
- Predictive models
Advocate for “developer” users
Advocate internally for the needs of “developer” users. These are third-party developers who are using the Worknice platform to develop their own solutions. They often will not be customers themselves, but can be a strong driver for increasing the adoption of Worknice in the market.
