How Wealthsimple Actually Builds

Over $125 billion in assets. 4 million clients. From an investment app nobody would download to one of the most prolific product companies in Canadian tech.A few hours before this panel, Wealthsimple announced a suite of new banking products. By the time we sat down, it was already public. So instead of talking about what they shipped, we got inside the room where it got built.Three product and engineering leaders from Wealthsimple walk through how the company actually operates: how nine engineers ship four products in parallel, why they cancelled their Cursor subscription and went all in on Claude, and what an AI-native company expects from everyone on the team.Featuring Sam Newman-Bremang (Sr. Director of Product), Jocelyn Jeffrey (Director of Engineering), and Channing Allen (Sr. Engineering Manager and former Co-Founder of Plenty), hosted by Philippe Burns.Along the way: how Wealthsimple went from a campus app nobody would download to a million-client banking product, the "naive ambition" behind shipping a feature before they were legally allowed to send an e-transfer, and why the engineer's role changes when code generation cost goes to zero.Recorded in Calgary, May 2026, co-hosted with Wealthsimple.Read the recap on the Calgary Tech Newsletter at calgarytech.substack.com.Tech Thursday is Canada's largest tech community event series, hosted weekly across Calgary, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Ottawa.