Backend engineer for property products

Homesearch; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Share options

25 days holiday plus bank holidays

MacBook provided

On-site gym, yoga and events

Hybrid work: London Victoria office, 2

Regular team events

Job summary

Homesearch is building the intelligence layer to speed up the property market by connecting people, homes and agents through data and AI. We seek a backend developer to extend our Laravel stack, APIs and data services, focusing on security, performance and scalable architecture in a fast-growing PropTech environment.

You will collaborate with product, embrace AI coding tools, and contribute to CI/CD pipelines using AWS, Redis and MySQL.

Qualifications

• Strong PHP and Laravel experience with solid SQL, MySQL preferred, understanding of optimisation and indexing.
• REST/JSON API development experience, comfortable with Redis alongside MySQL.
• AWS experience, particularly API Gateway, ECS and containers, plus Docker and Docker Compose.
• Confident with CI/CD workflows on Bitbucket or GitHub.
• Breadth across different systems (GIS, big data, indexing, ecommerce flows) and ability to explain trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders.
• Active use of AI coding tools (Claude, GitHub Copilot, Codex) while staying accountable for shipped work.
• Collaborative and receptive to code reviews; comfortable with ambiguity in product discussions.
• Ability to explain constraints to non-technical stakeholders; value adaptable career paths.
• Nice-to-have: Vue (V2/V3), Terraform, Agile/Scrum.

Responsibilities

• Work across HAILO, Homesearch Pro and app integrations to tackle high-impact problems.
• Build and extend APIs and backend services in Laravel.
• Improve processing and serving of property data as products scale.
• Set a high bar on security, performance and code quality; lead reviews.
• Shape code structure and CI/CD processes on Bitbucket/GitHub; share packages across the platform.
• Explain technical trade-offs to product/leadership in plain language for early decisions.
• Collaborate with product and participate before specs are fully settled.
• Utilise AI coding tools to speed up development where appropriate.

Skills

Laravel

PHP

REST/JSON API

SQL & MySQL

Caching/optimisation

CI/CD

AWS

Redis

Docker & Compose

AI coding tools

GitHub Copilot & Codex

Frontend basics (Vue/HTML/CSS)

Communication & collaboration

Tools

Docker

Bitbucket/GitHub

API Gateway / ECS

Terraform

Job description

Описание:

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. This is some of the most important work in the business.

Задачи:

• 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.

Требования:

• 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.
• Будет плюсом: 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

Условия:

• 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 officeonce 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.

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.