Senior Backend Engineer (Laravel / PHP)

Novus Recruitment Solutions; Sydney; On-site; AUD 160,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Salary + super

Equity or options

Ownership of features

Fast interview feedback

Job summary

Novus Recruitment Solutions is partnering with a Sydney SaaS scaleup to hire a senior backend engineer. The role focuses on the Laravel API, multi-tenant design, and secure, scalable data handling in the cloud. You will own backend features end to end and set coding standards for the team.

You’ll work with frontend, data and AI engineers and help make AI-enabled engineering the default, while shaping architecture, CI/CD, migrations, and security practices across the platform.

Qualifications

• Strong commercial experience with PHP and Laravel
• Relational database design, indexing, migrations on MySQL or Postgres
• Designing REST APIs with versioning, pagination and error handling
• Experience with multi-tenant SaaS architecture
• Security-minded approach beyond happy path
• Strong testing habit and shipping confidence
• AI-assisted engineering tools familiarity (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot)
• Senior level communication and autonomy

Responsibilities

• Own the Laravel API and services end to end
• Make architectural calls as the platform scales
• Collaborate with frontend, data and AI engineers and Product
• Set coding standards, reviews and technical direction
• Improve reliability, observability, CI/CD, migrations and release processes

Skills

PHP/Laravel

Relational databases (MySQL/PostgreSQL

REST API design

Multi-tenant architecture

Security minded

Testing discipline

AI tooling familiarity

Senior communication

Tools

Docker

AWS (RDS)

CI/CD

Job description

Our client is a Sydney SaaS scaleup whose platform helps enterprise customers inspect and manage complex physical infrastructure without leaving their desk. The customer base is growing, and they’re investing heavily in AI across both the product and the way the engineering team works.

The role: You’ll be a senior engineer on the backend of their core platform: a multi tenant, security sensitive SaaS product built on Laravel, with MySQL and Postgres, running on containers in the cloud. You’ll own significant backend features end to end, make architectural calls as the platform scales, and set the bar for how backend code is designed, reviewed and shipped. You’ll work closely with frontend, data and AI engineers and with Product, and help make AI assisted engineering the default.

What you’ll work on

• The Laravel API and services, including moving legacy server rendered views to clean, well tested API endpoints
• Data architecture at scale: multi tenant design, query performance and supporting many more customers on the same platform
• Safe, repeatable delivery: database migrations, release and rollback practices, and CI/CD
• Security and privacy: authentication, authorisation, secure handling of PII and pen test remediation
• Reliability and observability: error tracking, alerting and performance testing
• The backend for AI enabled features, including insights and assistant products
• Code review, standards and technical direction for the wider team, including offshore engineers

What you’ll bring

• Strong commercial experience with PHP and Laravel, or deep backend experience in a comparable mature framework and a real willingness to go all in on Laravel
• Solid relational database skills: schema design, indexing, query optimisation and safe migrations on MySQL or Postgres
• Experience designing and evolving REST APIs for a real product, including versioning, pagination, error handling and authorisation
• Experience with multi tenant SaaS architecture and its trade offs
• A security and quality conscious mindset that goes beyond the happy path
• A strong testing habit and confidence in what you ship
• AI assisted engineering as a daily habit with tools like Claude Code, Cursor or Copilot, and a considered view on where human judgement still has to lead
• Senior level communication and autonomy

Nice to have

• Docker, AWS (including RDS), CI/CD and infrastructure as code
• Queues, background jobs and scaling a monolith horizontally
• Observability and incident response
• Building AI enabled product features (LLM integration, retrieval, text to SQL)
• Working familiarity with Python or a modern frontend stack
• Exposure to ISO 27001, SOC 2 or secure handling of PII
• Experience with geospatial or large file data

What’s on offer

• Competitive senior salary plus superannuation and equity or options
• Real ownership and a short path from idea to production
• A four stage interview process with fast feedback, including a live working session where AI use is expected