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6 Canadian companies offering clear growth opportunities for software engineers in 2023

Whether they work in Montreal, Toronto, Quebec, or anywhere from the comfort of their homes, employees want meaningful jobs that help them elevate their careers. According to SHRM, consistent learning opportunities would encourage 68 percent of workers to stay with their employers instead of looking elsewhere.

We compiled a list of the top six companies offering good career growth opportunities for their software engineers in Canada.

1. A Thinking Ape

Office Location: 1132 Alberni Street, Suite 200, Vancouver, BC 

Who are they: A Thinking Ape is a company that builds communities through massive multiplayer online games. The complexity of these games entices their employees to solve creative challenges and develop engaging games for the players. They continuously seek scientists at heart, engineers at work to join their team. 

What makes them great?

Culture: They foster an ambitious environment that encourages people to take ownership of their work, debate productively, and make data-driven decisions. Continuous learning is among its fundamental values, as A Thinking Ape never stops enhancing its processes. 

Technology: A Thinking Ape focuses on complex technical problems, such as animation and graphics pipelines, advanced analytics infrastructure, and backend distributed systems, so that thousands of players around the world can connect simultaneously.

Benefits: They are a remote-first company, providing flexible work hours, unlimited sick days, a minimum three-weeks of vacation, mental health coverage, and paid parental leave.

Career growth: A Thinking Ape software engineers enjoy career development and leadership development programs, regular mentorship, and a culture of knowledge-sharing that they practice through biweekly 1:1s with their lead and quarterly skip-level 1:1s with senior leadership.

Tech Stack: TypeScript, JavaScript, React, Java, C#, Kafka, Google BigQuery, Objective-C, Unity, redis, Django, MySQL.

2. ProNavigator

Office Location: 151 Charles Street West, Suite 100, Kitchener, Ontario

Who are they: ProNavigator is an all-in-one insurance knowledge management platform. By storing all documents and making these easy to navigate, their product helps insurance brokers and companies connect leads and access information in real time.

What makes them great?

Culture: They put people and relationships first and encourage all employees to try new things and learn. ProNavigator also emphasizes transparent communication and collaboration. 

Technology: As their platform is a centralized, searchable location where insurance professionals store all their documents, ProNavigator invests in cutting-edge technology to ensure that not only are the documents securely stored but also that they are easy to search to be pulled by their users in a matter of seconds. Therefore, they use AI technologies to ensure search capabilities understand domain acronyms and provide an array of document analytics for their users to better understand their leads’ needs.

Benefits: ProNavigator provides a generous compensation package, remote work, and unlimited sick time. 

Career growth: They offer a generous annual career development budget, allowing their software engineers to pursue professional growth and stay at the forefront of emerging technologies. 

Tech Stack: Python, JavaScript, Linux Environments, AWS cloud ecosystem, Relational databases, Docker.

3. Mappedin

Office Location: 460 Phillip St, Suite 300, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 5J2

Who are they: Mappedin is a leading platform that creates interactive indoor maps for various venues. They provide end-to-end solutions to navigate property maps using a single CMS app, which can enhance shopper experience, increase tenant visibility, or create safer workspaces.

What makes them great?

Culture: Accountability, a collaborative spirit, and a customer-oriented approach are Mappedin’s core values. They pride themselves on solving challenging problems and encourage employees to learn from their mistakes.

Technology: Mappedin pushes automation boundaries by building mapping software that leverages 3D geo-located interactive maps that customers can add to existing mobile integrations. Since their platform is flexible, the users can tailor the maps and navigation to their personal or business needs (e.g., making locating products in a store quicker using the optimized routing tool). 

Benefits: They regularly organize team events and company town halls, where you can share your learnings and wins and learn alongside guest speakers. Mappedin also provides flexible vacation and remote work. 

Career growth: To help them grow their subject matter expertise, Mappedin encourages its software engineers to move across and within teams, learn from mentors (or mentor co-ops and junior contractors), and try a managerial position. Moreover, they organize quarterly three-day Hackedin and facilitate certifications and courses for employees who want to grow in their roles.

Tech Stack: Node.js, Typescript, MongoDB, React, Android, iOS.

4. Loopio

Office Location: 310 Spadina Avenue, Suite 600, Toronto, M5T 2E8

Who are they: Loopio is a Request for Proposal (RFP) software provider that allows clients to streamline their RFP responses using the library management system that makes all their content immediately searchable and accessible and ensures it’s up to date. Automation and collaborative tools enable Loopio’s platform to remove content storage chaos, find the correct answers faster, and allow access to designated Library users. Thanks to that, companies collaborate more effectively and create high-quality, winning proposals and RFP responses.

What makes them great?

Culture: Learning and development are central to Loopio’s company culture, which is why they foster curiosity and grit. The company encourages employees to master their craft and solve challenging problems.

Technology: Loopio’s RFP platform is consistently the highest ranked according to G2 users, which is a result of an easy-to-use, collaborative response management software.

Benefits: They provide remote work, robust health benefits, stock options, annual retreats, team wellness activities, and a generous paid time off program. 

Career growth: Loopio provides an annual professional mastery allowance for every employee, allowing them to learn new technical skills to stay ahead of the latest industry trends and developments. They foster regular 1:1s, where software engineers can assess their professional development and set new goals. 

Tech Stack: PHP, Python, Java, React, JavaScript, RESTful APIs, Typescript, AWS, Cypress, Elasticsearch.

5. Validere

Office Location: Toronto – 1300 Yonge St, Suite 701

Calgary – 530 8 Ave SW, Suite 710

Who are they: Validere is a measurement, reporting, and verification SaaS company that helps energy organizations view their procedures on a granular level, be more data-driven, and turn incomplete data into actionable solutions by centralizing their emissions and operations data in a Monitor, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) platform. Their MRV software has a single dashboard where clients can track and measure product quality and use these insights and the help of a team of multidisciplinary experts to establish a carbon reduction strategy and generate environmental and financial value.

What makes them great?

Culture: They focus on delivering the highest value, removing friction, and increasing scalability every day. Inclusion, transparency, and equity are among Validere’s top priorities.

Technology: With its intuitive MRV platform that helps energy and nature-based companies centralize their emissions and operations data, Validere leverages the positive impact of technology to enhance human prosperity. Their cloud-based software enables their clients to identify where to focus carbon reduction efforts, analyze risks, and improve strategies, resulting in greater sustainability and credibility.

Benefits: They provide comprehensive health benefits, stock options, RRSP matching programs, MyHSA health spending accounts, and flexible work.

Career growth: Validere offers mentorship  and a professional development budget that allows its software engineers to master their skills and pursue their aspirations. 

Tech stack: JavaScript, Typescript, HTML, CSS, Scrum, Node.js, React.js, AWS, Postgres, Data Analytics products.

6. Zensurance

Office Location: 200 University Ave #1301, Toronto, ON M5H 3C6

Who are they: Zensurance is an Insurtech company that helps self-employed professionals and small business owners across different industries protect their livelihoods and assets with comprehensive commercial insurance. Their simplified platforms allows their customers to cut as much as 35 percent on their insurance costs, as well as save time by requesting a quote online whenever they need to. 

What makes them great?

Culture: Innovation, ambitious goals, inclusion, and integrity are the pillars of Zensurance’s culture. They prioritize learning and shared passions and objectives. 

Technology: Zensurance is making exquisite strides in the insurance industry, making insurance more accessible for small businesses and startups. They pride themselves on boldly going where no insurance broker has gone before by developing an intuitive platform that makes it easy for clients, including freelancers and Etsy sellers, to manage their insurance and purchase policies online 24 hours a day.

Benefits: This company provides a parental leave top up policy, 60 days away policy, a healthcare spend account, an office supplies subsidy, full-time remote work, and an “Office in a box” package for remote employees.

Career growth: They provide training and professional development budgets, knowledge sharing through power-ups, book clubs, learning events, twice-annual hackathons, mentoring, and documented and well-defined career progression paths. 

Tech Stack: AWS, Git, React, NestJS, Jest, Mocha, Node.js, Typescript.

Are you eager to grow your career?

Avansai understands your need to go beyond acquiring work experience and wanting to feel supported and fulfilled in your workplace. This is why our data-driven platform not only takes your experience under consideration but what it is that you’re looking for to advance your career.  

Start by creating your Candidate Profile, and we’ll only match you with companies that meet your learning and development needs.

Ready to take the next step toward accelerating your professional growth?