Senior PHP Backend Engineer (Remote, Full-Time) [AR025]

Responsibilities

- Own and evolve the PHP backend that ingests GPS and telematics data, safety hardware events and DVR video, and sends real-time alerts.

- Build and maintain APIs used by the web platform, mobile application and integration partners.

- Deliver the ongoing Yii2-to-Laravel migration, with Yii2 at end of life and approximately a year remaining to complete the migration.

- Deliver the ongoing MariaDB-to-PostgreSQL migration.

- Support the decomposition of the existing monolith into microservices.

- Take over systems from a retiring contractor and become productive quickly despite limited documentation.

- Support the backend for the AI product line, working alongside the developer currently leading computer vision work; the exact scope is still to be confirmed.

- Take end-to-end ownership of production systems rather than requiring prior people-management or project-lead experience.

- Work independently within a small senior team while collaborating closely on AI-related work.

- Apply architectural judgement to microservices and database migrations, with particular attention to data integrity during migration.

- Work flexibly within established practices, including Bitbucket Pipelines and PHPUnit, in a small team with light process.

- Contribute as a problem-solver, applying senior technical judgement to production engineering decisions.

- Work thoroughly on production systems used by local authorities while ramping up quickly for the required start date.

Requirements

- 8+ years of commercial PHP backend development at Expert level.

- 5+ years of experience with large-scale SaaS or complex production systems at Expert level; simple or low-traffic systems will not meet the required standard.

- 3+ years of PostgreSQL experience at Advanced level.

- 5+ years of API design and third-party integration experience at Advanced level.

- 3+ years of high-volume data processing experience at Advanced level, including event-driven systems and ingestion pipelines; IoT or device data ingestion, streaming or queue-based systems are acceptable substitutes.

- 3+ years of Laravel and/or Yii2 experience at Advanced level.

- 3+ years of PHPUnit experience at Advanced level; other PHP testing frameworks such as Pest or Codeception may substitute.

- 2+ years of microservices or monolith-decomposition experience at Intermediate level; service-oriented or modular architecture work may substitute.

- 2+ years of AWS experience at Intermediate level; Azure or GCP may substitute.

- Experience in the telematics, fleet or logistics domain at Intermediate level; IoT, GPS/location technology or connected-device experience may substitute.

- Experience with video, CCTV or large media file handling at Intermediate level; large-file storage, retrieval and retention at scale may substitute.

- Ability to take end-to-end ownership of mature production systems, work independently with limited hand-holding and apply strong technical judgement.

- Strong complex-system exposure is essential. Experience with complex systems matters more than years alone, and backgrounds limited to simple or basic applications are not suitable.

Nice to Have

- Experience with MariaDB/MySQL at scale, particularly relevant to an environment currently migrating from MariaDB to PostgreSQL.

- Front-end experience, although this is not required for this 100% backend role.

- Familiarity with CI/CD using Bitbucket Pipelines; GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or Jenkins are suitable alternatives.

- Familiarity with AI or computer vision, including YOLO-type object detection; ML or image-processing pipeline exposure may substitute.

- Experience combining event-driven or IoT-style data ingestion with large media files at scale, ideally alongside an ML pipeline.

- AI experience is a tiebreaker only and candidates should not be excluded for lacking it.