Backend Engineer

Story Terrace Inc.; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

25 days holiday + bank holidays

MacBook provided

On-site gym, yoga, sauna & events

Hybrid: London Victoria office 1x/week

Real impact at PropTech

Job summary

Story Terrace Inc. is building the backbone of a fast-growing PropTech platform in London.

We are seeking a hands-on backend engineer to work across HAILO, Homesearch Pro and app integrations, shaping what gets built and delivering live features to thousands of estate agents. You’ll contribute across APIs, Laravel, and data processing, set security and performance standards, and collaborate with product before specs are settled.

Qualifications

• Proficient in PHP and Laravel with SQL/MySQL
• Experience REST/JSON API development
• Experience with Redis, AWS and Docker
• Familiar with CI/CD workflows (Bitbucket/GitHub)
• Able to work across diverse systems and data architectures

Responsibilities

• Work across HAILO, Homesearch Pro and app integrations
• Build and extend APIs and backend services in Laravel
• Process and serve property data as products grow
• Set high bar on security, performance and code quality; code review
• Shape code structure and CI/CD across Bitbucket and GitHub
• Explain trade-offs to product and leadership clearly
• Collaborate with product before specs are settled
• Use AI tools (Claude, Copilot, Codex) to speed work

Skills

PHP

Laravel

SQL

MySQL

REST API

Redis

AWS

Docker

CI/CD

Code review

Tools

Bitbucket

GitHub

Claude

Codex

Terraform

Docker Compose

API Gateway

ECS

Job description

About Us

Every year, hundreds of thousands of homeowners could move but don't, and homes that could sell never reach the market. The property market is slower and more closed than it should be. Homesearch is building the intelligence layer that gets it moving, connecting people, homes and agents through data and AI. Our vision is a fully connected, faster, more open property market.

We're one of the UK's leading PropTech platforms for estate agents, helping them win more listings, understand their local market, and turn existing contacts into new instructions. More than 1,500 agents subscribe, from independents to names like Knight Frank, Hamptons and KFH, and we're a trusted partner to Reapit, Dezrez, Rex, MRI and other leading CRMs. Our products, including HAILO and ReContact, are picking up real momentum and fast becoming tools agents know and trust. We're a team of around 40, backed by Octopus Ventures.

About the Role

This is some of the most important work in the business. Thousands of estate agents use our products every day, demand for what we build keeps growing, and the backend is what makes all of it work. You'll be right at the heart of it.

You won't be boxed into one product. You'll work across HAILO, our AI listings optimiser, Homesearch Pro, our prospecting product, and our app integrations. The work is varied, the problems are real, and what you ship goes live to customers who rely on it.

You'll have a real say in what gets built. We're a small team where good ideas get picked up fast, and you'll be in the room when product decisions are made, not handed a spec after the fact. If you like shaping what gets built as much as building it, this is that role.

We're open on level, mid or senior. It's hands‑on: you'll be in the code every day.

What You'll Do

• Work across HAILO, Homesearch Pro and our app integrations, picking up the problems that matter most at the time.
• Build and extend APIs and backend services in our Laravel codebase.
• Find new ways to process and serve property data as our products and customers grow.
• Set a high bar on security, performance and code quality, and help others meet it through code review.
• Help shape how we structure and ship code, from CI/CD on Bitbucket and GitHub to shared packages used across the platform.
• Explain technical trade-offs to product and leadership in plain language, so good decisions get made early.
• Work closely with product, and get involved before a spec is fully settled.
• Use AI tools (we use Claude, GitHub Copilot and Codex) where they genuinely speed up the work.

About You

• Strong PHP and Laravel experience, with solid SQL, MySQL preferred, and a real understanding of optimisation and indexing.
• REST/JSON API development experience, and comfortable working with Redis alongside MySQL.
• AWS experience, particularly API Gateway, ECS and containers, plus Docker and Docker Compose.
• Confident within CI/CD workflows on Bitbucket or GitHub.
• What matters more than years of experience is breadth: you've worked across genuinely different kinds of systems, maybe GIS, big data or indexing and data architecture, e-commerce customer flows and payments, and that range shows in how you approach problems.
• You use AI coding tools (Claude, GitHub Copilot, Codex or similar) actively as part of how you work. Neither resisting them nor relying on them blindly, you stay accountable for what you ship.
• Collaborative and genuinely receptive to code review, and comfortable with ambiguity, especially in product conversations before a spec is fully settled.
• You can explain a technical constraint to a non-technical stakeholder without losing them.
• We welcome career paths that don't run in a straight line. Some of our strongest people came from unrelated fields, and that adaptability is exactly what we're looking for.

Extra points for:

• Comfortable with Vue (V2/V3) and vanilla HTML/CSS for the occasional frontend‑adjacent piece of work.
• Terraform or infrastructure‑as‑code experience.
• Agile/Scrum ways of working.

How We Work

Our values run through everything we do. Remove Friction: make everything seamless. Stay Curious: ask, learn, improve. Own It: take the lead, own the result. Raise the Bar: think big, deliver value. We're high performers who care about the mission and each other. High standards, open communication, and no room for ego or politics.

Perks

• Competitive salary, plus share options, so you share in the upside you create.
• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays.
• A MacBook to work on.
• An office with a free on-site gym, free yoga and gym classes, sauna and regular events.
• Hybrid working: mostly remote, with time in our London Victoria office once a week while you get to know the products and team, then around 2 to 4 days a month once settled.
• Real impact at a fast‑growing PropTech at a real turning point.