Senior PHP Developer - REST API

We are a highly successful UK based Events Management SaaS company looking for an ambitious PHP Technology/Software Architect to help oversee the next phase of development of our suite of products. As an accomplished PHP Senior Engineer you will have a solid track record of designing highly scalable technology platforms.

We are gearing up for the next stage of our journey and invite you to discuss how we can collaborate whilst supporting your personal growth.

Current Tech Includes: PHP, MySQL, Laravel

Methodologies: Agile/Kanban, TDD/BDD, Continuous Integration and Delivery, AI-assisted development with Cursor & Claude

With an existing and highly satisfied customer base of very well-known large international blue chip enterprises, we are a secure and dynamically growing Software business with a 20-year history of stability and profit from offices in Farringdon, London. Our client list includes Deutsche Bank, Santander, BNPP, Ford, Kia, Toyota, Linklaters, Clifford Chance, Freshfields etc.

We are looking for someone to help oversee the next phase of development of our REST APIs. While we have highly skilled developers within our teams, your role will be to provide a more holistic view to our product offering. These products are both internal and external facing, the majority of which are developed in PHP. You will be working with our dev team to design efficient and future proof features whether for a specific product or for features that interact across various products.

Our systems process significant amounts of data every day so you will need to make sure that these systems are scalable for our smallest and largest clients. You will also be expected to leverage AI assisted development tooling - including Cursor and Claude - to accelerate delivery, improve code quality, and embed intelligent development practices across the team.

You will be assisting in decision making for leading architectural decisions for tools and techniques, understanding the current architecture as it exists today and for the future, and delivering the product roadmap. You'll split your time between hands on development and architecture - writing production code on the features you build is just as central to this role as making the right design decisions.

• Ensure our API meets the needs of both our smallest and largest enterprise clients.
• Champion security, scalability, and maintainability at every stage.
• Drive adoption of AI assisted development practices, including Cursor and Claude, across the engineering team.

• 5 years of current, professional experience as a PHP Software Engineer.
• A strong understanding of software design patterns and principles.
• Experience with systems that process and handle large amounts of data.
• A strong understanding of cloud computing/distributed systems.
• Analysing existing systems and increasing efficiencies.
• Experience with highly scalable database platforms and have delivered Enterprise distributed cloud applications.
• A track record of delivering mission critical, enterprise cloud based software/SaaS applications to budget and time.
• Experience with developing robust and secure APIs to facilitate an ecosystem of apps and websites.
• Proven experience deploying, managing, and optimising SaaS applications on AWS, including EC2, RDS, S3, CloudFront, and Lambda.
• A good understanding of modern web security standards and methodologies.
• Experience in background processing, queuing, scheduling and multithreading.
• Proficiency using AI coding tools such as Cursor and Claude to write, review, refactor, and document code efficiently.
• Ability to craft effective prompts and work iteratively with LLMs to solve complex engineering challenges.
• Experience integrating AI APIs (e.g. Anthropic Claude, OpenAI) into backend systems and workflows.

• Language: PHP (8.2+), Javascript, HTML, CSS
• Frameworks: Laravel (or equivalent)
• Cloud services: Server and serverless systems, object storage, logging, relational databases
• Database and Datastores: MySQL, Redis
• Operating system: Linux (Ubuntu)
• AI Development Tools: Cursor IDE, Claude (Anthropic), prompt engineering for code generation and review

• Apache server, message queue architecture
• Experience with cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP etc.)
• Experience with microservicing large platforms.
• Experience with developing with websockets.
• Experience with building continuous integration pipelines (Jenkins, Docker and Kubernetes).
• Experience building AI powered features or integrating LLM based tooling into production systems.
• Familiarity with AI agent frameworks, RAG pipelines, or MCP (Model Context Protocol) integrations.

We are extremely ambitious, with bold targets designed to place us among the very best in our industry. As part of our team, you'll have access to multiple career progression routes - from people and leadership roles to product expertise and project management. The direction you take is yours to choose, and we'll be on hand with the guidance and support you need to succeed. We offer a highly collaborative working environment, excellent support for career progression, and a strong commitment to developing our people - including investment in AI tooling and training.

• Company pension scheme
• Gym membership
• Hybrid working (3 days a week in our Farringdon, London office)
• Vibrant location with a top-quality coffee shop next door and a bustling food market right outside

We are an equal opportunities employer. You must be eligible to work in the UK, hold a valid visa or UK residency, and be currently based in the UK. You must also be prepared to undergo high-level security clearance.

Salary: £65,000-£70,000

Location: London