Senior Software Engineer, Operations

Sun Life Financial, Inc.

$90K — $140K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 7+ years in Java application support, analysis, and development.
  • Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent discipline.
  • 3+ years with Incident Management Processes in IT operations.
  • Experience with Java, JavaScript, and web development languages (HTML, XML, CSS).
  • Familiarity with container technologies like Kubernetes and Docker.

Responsibilities

  • Support fault-tolerant and scalable systems to guarantee high availability.
  • Define and track SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets for balancing reliability and speed.
  • Implement monitoring and alerting for continuous assessment of applications and infrastructure.
  • Lead incident response during high-impact production issues and participate in on-call rotations.
  • Automate operational tasks related to scaling, incident recovery, and routine maintenance.

Benefits

  • Recognized as a 2026 Great Place to Work® in Canada.
  • Top-level certification for mental health at work from Excellence Canada.
  • Wellness programs supporting mental, physical, and financial health.
  • Career advancement opportunities with extensive networking potential.
  • Flexible hybrid work setup tailored to business and client needs.
Full Job Description
Job Description:

The e-Business team in Application Operations Support (AOS) provides operations and support services to ensure reliability of IT applications to deliver seamless Digital experiences for our clients. Through innovation, continuous improvement, and collaboration, we strive to find new and better ways to bring value to Sun Life.

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer who thrives in high-impact environments and brings 7+ years of Java application support, analysis, and development experience. In this role, you will play a key part in keeping critical systems reliable, scalable, secure, and resilient-especially when incidents arise. The ideal candidate is a calm, confident problem solver who can take ownership during production incidents, drive resolution, and collaborate effectively across Delivery, Infrastructure, and IT Operations.

What you will do?

Reliability Engineering
  • Support highly available, fault-tolerant, and scalable systems.
  • Define and track Service Level Indicators (SLIs), Service Level Objectives (SLOs), and error budgets to balance reliability and delivery speed.


Monitoring & Observability
  • Implement end-to-end monitoring, logging, and alerting for applications and infrastructure.
  • Proactively identify performance degradation, capacity risks, and reliability gaps.


Incident Management & Response
  • Participate in on-call rotations and lead high-impact incident response for production issues.
  • Participate in post-incident reviews and drive corrective and preventive actions.


Automation & Tooling
  • Reduce operational work through automation of scaling, incident recovery, and routine tasks.
  • Build internal tools and platforms to improve operational efficiency.
  • Build telemetry to detect issues and implement self-healing to keep MTTR down


Release, Change & Capacity Management
  • Partner with development teams on safe releases, rollbacks, and change validation.
  • Perform capacity planning and performance tuning to support growth.


Collaboration & Enablement
  • Work cross-functionally with product, engineering, security, and operations teams.
  • Document systems, standards, and operational practices to promote shared ownership


What do you need to succeed:
  • Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent discipline
  • 3+ years with Incident Management Processes in IT operations
  • 7+ years experience in:
    • Java, JavaScript & web development languages like HTML, XML, CSS
    • Java Enterprise Edition (J2EE) technologies such as Servlet, JDBC and JSP
    • Spring framework
  • 1+ years experience in:
    • ReactJS/ React.js -> Angular
    • Container technologies - Kubernetes, Docker
    • Web Security Knowledge (OWASP top 10)

Learn on the job:
  • Web services and frameworks such as SOAP, REST API, Java APIs, JSON, Spring Boot
  • Database technologies like SQL, Oracle, POSTGRES
  • DevOps tools - Jenkins, Artifactory, Bitbucket/Git, Gradle, Maven, CDD, Ansible
  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • Exposure to Agile framework (Kanban, Scrum)
  • Experience working with cloud hosted applications / servers on AWS.
  • Exposure to team collaboration tools like Confluence, JIRA, Service Now, MS Teams
  • Experience with Kafka and light car proxy
  • Use of AI based tools to bring efficiency
  • Knowledge of Middleware technologies such as WebSphere/WebLogic


Preferred Skills:
  • Collaboration and teamwork
  • Continuous learning mindset
  • Familiar with AI Ops capabilities, experience developing / implementing AI based tools is an added advantage
  • Ability to work in a dynamic environment with changing priorities
  • Be able to lead/drive investigations involving a cross-functional team
  • Strong analysis, debugging and problem-solving skills
  • Ability to produce succinct reports on incident impact, root cause and follow-ups
  • Solid written and verbal communication skills


Notes/Unique requirements:
  • The role includes on-call and after-hours support on a team rotation basis.
  • This role requires Canadian Enhanced Reliability Security clearance [a minimum of 5 years of consecutive residency in Canada].


What's in it for you:
  • We're honoured to be recognized as a 2026 Best Workplaces in Canada by Great Place to Work® Canada.
  • We are thrilled to be recognized by Excellence Canada with their top-level certification, the Canada Order of Excellence for Mental Health at Work®, for prioritizing employee well-being, fostering a positive work culture, and achieving excellence in mental health.
  • Wellness programs that support the three pillars of your health - mental, physical, and financial
  • The opportunity to move along a variety of career paths with amazing networking potential.
  • As a hybrid organization, you and your leader use business and Client needs to choose where you work, at home or in the office


#LI-Hybrid #LI-remote

Salary Range:
90,000/90 000 - 140,000/140 000

Job Category:
IT - Application Development

Posting End Date:
05/08/2026

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