Backend developer – big data

A Team at CHU Sainte-Justine

With over 200 renowned researchers, the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center (CHU Sainte-Justine) is the largest mother-child center in Canada and one of the most prominent in North America. Serving children affected by rare diseases, cancer, and other serious medical conditions, the software applications developed by CHU Sainte-Justine’s Ferlab team aim to optimize the use of large-scale health data for research, contributing to improved diagnostics and treatments for patients at CHU Sainte-Justine and around the world.

Backend Developer – Big Data

Ferlab develops and operates a big data platform called UnIC, which integrates all clinico-administrative data generated by the hospital. This platform includes a data lake fed by various CHU Sainte-Justine systems, along with a suite of powerful analytics tools tailored for large-scale data science.

Ferlab is seeking an experienced backend developer – big data, with strong expertise in distributed database systems handling large volumes of data, such as ClickHouse, StarRocks, Apache Doris, Elasticsearch / OpenSearch, and Redshift.

Your Role

As a member of the Ferlab team, you will:

• Design, implement, and test data transformation applications using Spark and Scala

• Write Airflow DAGs in Python to orchestrate ETL processes

• Develop and test programs that apply AI tools to large-scale data

• Participate in the development of federated learning applications

• Develop code to ensure data quality and integrity

• Contribute to the development of technical specifications and document system requirements

• Stay up to date on emerging technologies and best practices

• Develop REST services to support the UnIC data portal

Our Tech Stack

We prioritize open-source tools published on GitHub and are always open to exploring new technologies and approaches.

Our stack includes:

• Programming languages: Scala, Java, Python, and Go

• Technologies: Spark, Airflow, Delta Lake, Iceberg, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, S3 (MinIO), Docker, Terraform, Kubernetes, Git and GitHub, OAuth2

We’re Looking for Someone With:

• A bachelor’s degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related field

• At least 4 years of experience in backend software development

• Experience developing systems handling large volumes of sensitive data

• Experience working with SQL databases

• Mandatory experience with Apache Spark

• Experience working with Kubernetes

• Experience with AWS or another cloud platform and object stores (e.g., S3)

• Proficiency in Scala or Java, and Python

• Experience in developing REST APIs

What We Offer

• 35-hour work week – with high scheduling flexibility

• Open vacation policy – starting with 4 weeks off

• 9.6 paid sick days (3 can be used as personal days)

• 13 statutory holidays (instead of the 10 provided by CNESST)

• Generous pension plan – among the best in the market

• Group insurance plan and employee assistance program – for you and your family

• On-site daycare – for parents who prefer to work in person

• Possibility of remote work

• Choice of Linux or Mac development environment.

Join us and put your skills to work for children’s health. Apply by email at recrutement@ferlab.bio.