Director of Research and Development

Job Description: 

What You'll Own

Platform & Product Engineering

• Technical ownership of the Total Service Cloud ERP — TypeScript/Node, React, Express, Drizzle ORM on PostgreSQL, Vite, Vitest, Playwright — across features, backend correctness, and release engineering.
• Functional parity between the legacy desktop ERP and the cloud platform: a module-by-module program across Payroll, AR, AP, GL, Job Cost, Inventory, Dispatch, Sales, Purchasing, Reporting, and Banking, audited and carried to release-verified.
• The highest-stakes correctness work: general-ledger posting and reversals, payroll tax wage bases, US and Canadian tax handling, multi-tenant isolation, and permission enforcement.
• ERP-wide UX standards — authoring the conventions and holding every module to them.
• Continuity of the legacy systems that still serve customers, including a Java/Spring service layer and the VB6 desktop ERP.

Cloud Infrastructure, Reliability & Cost Governance

• Cloud architecture and operations across Azure and AWS for a multi-tenant customer fleet: App Service slots, PostgreSQL Flexible Server, Key Vault, Front Door, managed identity, and infrastructure-as-code (Bicep).
• Release and deploy infrastructure: CI/CD in GitHub Actions, blue-green UAT on refreshed masked databases, deploy gates, and slot-swap workflows.
• Cloud cost governance — you own the spend, the forecast, and the optimization backlog. Recent work in this seat cut monthly Azure spend by roughly half.
• Production incident response: error triage, root-cause analysis, fleet-wide architectural calls, and uptime accountability.

Legacy-to-Cloud Migration

• End-to-end ownership of the migration program: the canonical tenant matrix, the Python/SQL Server → PostgreSQL ETL pipeline, schema canonicalization, and data-fidelity reconciliation.
• Customer production imports and go-lives, and final escalation ownership for migration data issues.
• The decommissioning path for the legacy platform, coordinated with infrastructure and legacy-ERP peers.

AI in the Software Lifecycle

• Architecture and operation of our multi-agent development pipeline (ClickUp → Claude Code → GitHub PR), including the decisions that keep it auditable and the per-task economics that keep it affordable.
• Accountable authorship for AI-assisted output — the pipeline accelerates the work; you own the result.
• Supporting internal tooling: repo/task sync automation, AI-assisted QA triage, and developer tooling experiments.
• Representing the business unit as a practitioner on AI in the SDLC, internally and to sister companies across the Constellation group.

Leadership & Representation

• Lead the engineering team: chair standups and technical syncs, author specs, split and review work, and act as merge and release gatekeeper.
• Direct QA and contractor staffing and resourcing.
• Run customer-facing onboarding and go-live directly for named accounts.
• Report the business unit's R&D and AI initiatives upward to Jonas/Constellation, and participate in cross-business-unit technical forums.
• Evaluate vendors and drive business-unit IT, security, and tenancy decisions.

Required

• Senior full-stack engineering depth in TypeScript/Node (React, Express, an ORM against PostgreSQL) with demonstrated ownership of a production application at meaningful scale.
• Strong backend correctness discipline in financial or accounting domains — GL, AR/AP, payroll, or tax — and in multi-tenant SaaS security (authorization, tenant isolation).
• Substantial cloud engineering experience on Azure and/or AWS, including infrastructure-as-code, secrets and identity management, and cost optimization.
• Data migration and ETL experience: relational-to-relational at fleet scale, with schema canonicalization and reconciliation.
• DevOps and release engineering: CI/CD, blue-green or slot-based deployment, migration safety, and production incident response.
• Practical experience with LLM agents or AI-assisted development, and sound judgment about where to trust them and where not to.
• Technical leadership: leading engineers, setting standards, gatekeeping releases, and representing engineering to executives and customers.
• Comfort working with legacy code you did not write, and the pragmatism to keep it running while replacing it.

Preferred

• Field-service, elevator, door, or HVAC ERP domain experience.
• Experience inside the Jonas Software / Constellation operating model.
• Mobile release engineering (Android, Play Console, signing and keystore management, crash observability).
• Java or Java/Android maintenance experience.
• Enterprise identity and tenancy administration (Entra/SSO, Microsoft 365, email security tooling).
• .NET/C# familiarity for auxiliary services.

• Languages & frameworks: TypeScript/Node, React, Express, Drizzle ORM; Python; Java/Spring; Java/Android; VB6; PowerShell; some .NET/C#
• Data: PostgreSQL (Flexible Server), SQL Server, migration tooling
• Cloud: Azure (App Service slots, PostgreSQL, Key Vault, Bicep, Front Door, ACR, APIM, managed identity) and AWS (S3, CloudTrail, CloudWatch, QuickSight)
• AI & automation: Claude Code, multi-agent orchestration, MCP
• DevOps & observability: GitHub Actions, Sentry, PgBouncer, Docker, Playwright, Vitest
• Collaboration: ClickUp, Microsoft 365 / Teams, Tailscale

Business Unit: 

Scheduled Weekly Hours:

Number of Openings Available: 

Worker Type: 

More About Jonas Software:

Jonas Software is a leading provider of enterprise management software solutions, serving a wide range of vertical markets including hospitality, healthcare, construction, education, personal care, fitness, leisure, moving and legal services, to name a few. Within these markets, Jonas is comprised of over 65 distinct brands, each a respected leader in its domain.

Jonas’ vision is to be the branded global leader across these verticals and to be recognized by customers and industry stakeholders as the trusted provider of “Software for Life.” We are committed to technology, product innovation, quality, and exceptional customer service.

Jonas Software supports over 60,000 customers in more than 30 countries. We employ over 6,000 skilled professionals, including industry experts and technology specialists. Across our broader network, we support a global workforce of more than 30,000 employees.

Headquartered in Canada, Jonas Software has a global footprint with offices around the world. We’re a 100% owned subsidiary of Constellation Software Inc., based in Toronto, publicly listed on the TSX (CSU.TO), and a member of the S&P/TSX 60 Index.