Staff Engineer

About

You are as unique as your background, experience and point of view. Here, you’ll be encouraged, empowered and challenged to be your best self. You'll work with dynamic colleagues - experts in their fields - who are eager to share their knowledge with you. Your leaders will inspire and help you reach your potential and soar to new heights. Every day, you'll have new and exciting opportunities to make life brighter for our Clients - who are at the heart of everything we do. Discover how you can make a difference in the lives of individuals, families and communities around the world.

Job Description

Prospr is Sun Life's digital front door for Canadians — startup velocity inside a Fortune 500. We're revolutionizing how Canadians access insurance and wealth solutions by building a platform that lets people buy products the way they want to: online in minutes or virtually via a team of trusted, licensed Advisors. We move fast. We test ideas in production. We use AI to cut friction and ship the experience customers expect.

Please note: For candidates with these preferred skills, exceptions beyond the usual salary range below may be possible.

The Role

You are the fixer. The unblocker. The engineer people pull in when things get messy. As Staff Engineer on Prospr you take on the hardest problems and get them shipped. You turn fuzzy ideas into working software. You bridge architecture and production. You set the bar for quality and pace across squads by prototyping fast, diagnosing incidents, managing technical debt and making tough calls.

What You'll Do

• Ship fast with guardrails that keep quality high, tech debt low, and systems up
• Design the path for big bets and land them in production
• Advise Engineering and Product leaders with options trade‑offs and recommendations
• Collaborate with Architects—make sure designs actually work in production, not just on whiteboards
• Rapid prototyping—validate approaches before squads commit sprint cycles
• Coach senior engineers and raise the bar across the team
• Unblock squads—when they're stuck on hard problems (security, integrations, performance, architecture)
• Influence technical direction to cut rework, speed up decisions and keep releases moving
• Bridge architecture and reality—ensure designs survive contact with production

What Success Looks Like

• Teams ship faster because you kill friction.
• Big bets land because you prove the approach early.
• Engineers level up because you coach in the trenches.
• Leaders trust you to make the call when it is noisy.

Who You Are

• Senior engineer from a tech startup or digital product company
• Deep technical expert who can jump across backend, frontend, integrations, data and AI and keep learning
• Hands‑on builder who can whip up prototypes and debug production systems
• Strong technical communicator who can explain complex concepts to Product, Architects, and leadership
• Comfortable with ambiguity and able to turn emerging requirements into shippable plans
• Startup mindset you ship fast without breaking the basics
• Comfortable influencing without authority
• Continuous learner in an ever‑changing technology landscape

What You Bring

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with senior level ownership and cross‑team influence
• Hands on expertise with Java, React, Salesforce, and enterprise integrations
• Technical breadth and credibility to challenge architecture, guide technical strategy and set standards for quality, reliability and maintainability
• Proven success owning end‑to‑end delivery for customer‑facing digital products from planning to build to release to operate with measurable outcomes
• Experience setting and running an engineering operating cadence across prioritization, planning, execution, dependencies, quality and incident learnings
• Experience partnering with Product, Design, and senior stakeholders to navigate trade‑offs, risk and timelines in a complex environment
• Strong track record developing talent through mentoring, pairing and raising the technical bar across squads

Why This Role

• High‑Impact Work: Build products that directly shape Sun Life's future, with your code reaching real users quickly
• Leadership Opportunity: Lead technical direction, mentor others, and shape the engineering culture of a growing team
• Learn and Grow Fast: Exposure to new technologies, business problems, and the full product lifecycle in a compressed timeframe
• Collaborative, Innovative Culture: Work with passionate, talented people who move fast and support each other
• Flexible Workstyle: In office 2‑3 days per week, hybrid the rest of the week

Compensation

The Base Pay range is for the primary location for which the job is posted. It may vary depending on the work location of the successful candidate or other factors. In addition to Base Pay, eligible Sun Life employees participate in various incentive plans, payment under which is discretionary and subject to individual and company performance. Certain sales‑focused roles have sales incentive plans based on individual or group sales results.

Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity and inclusion have always been at the core of our values at Sun Life. A diverse workforce with wide perspectives and creative ideas benefits our Clients, the communities where we operate and all of us as colleagues. We welcome applications from qualified individuals from all backgrounds. Persons with disabilities who need accommodation in the application process, or those needing job postings in an alternative format, may e‑mail a request to thebrightside@sunlife.com.

Work Arrangement

We are proud to be a hybrid organization that offers our employees the choice and flexibility to work from both the office and virtually based on the needs of the business, our Clients and you! Several work options are available and can be discussed throughout the selection process depending on the role requirements and individual needs.

AI Usage

We may use artificial intelligence to support candidate sourcing, screening, interview scheduling.

Application Process

We thank all applicants for showing an interest in this position. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

Salary Range

125,000/125 000 - 195,000/195 000

Job Category

IT - Application Development

Posting End Date

19/04/2026

Shine Together

At Sun Life, you can be your most brilliant self. Our supportive, flexible, and inclusive work environment is one where you – and your career – can thrive. Whatever your aspirations, collaborative leaders and colleagues are ready to help you learn, grow, and succeed.

Make Life Brighter

We’re a global company with a passion for people. Our purpose is to help Clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives. As a team of 30,000 across 26 countries, our impact is far‑reaching, and locally relevant. There’s power in numbers. As part of Sun Life’s growing team, you have an impact on people in your community and around the world.

Shape the Future

With an optimistic eye on a brighter future, we drive to innovate. Be part of leading change, push boundaries and try new ways of working. Use data to drive bold actions. Be agile and pivot as we test and learn. At Sun Life, we’re driving transformation, sustainability and innovation for our Clients, employees, partners, and communities.

Join Us

Together, we can make the future brighter.

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