Full Stack PHP / Laravel Engineer
Location: Reading Area – 1 day/month on-site
Core Focus Backend-heavy engineering role for an established UK digital platform. Primary responsibility is tackling technical debt, refactoring legacy architecture, and optimizing application performance alongside new feature delivery.
Strict Requirements
- PHP 8+ & Laravel: Commercial experience with Eloquent, Form Requests, Queued Jobs, and custom Artisan commands.
- Codebase Refactoring: Proven history of refactoring legacy codebases and improving system maintainability rather than just executing feature tickets.
- MySQL Optimization: Hands-on experience with indexing strategies, query analysis, and schema design.
- Stack Balance: 70/30 to 50/50 backend-to-frontend focus.
- Tooling: Docker, automated testing (PHPUnit), and modern utility CSS/JS (Tailwind, Alpine.js, or Vue).
- Location: Must be UK-based within commuting distance for 1 day/month on-site in the Reading area.
Responsibilities
- Build backend services end-to-end in PHP 8 and Laravel.
- Identify database/API performance bottlenecks and implement fixes.
- Contribute to Docker container setup and CI/CD pipelines.
- Ship code directly from local environment through to production in a lean, autonomous team