Lead Software Engineer

ByteHire; City Of London; Remote; GBP 85,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading HealthTech company is seeking a Principal PHP Software Engineer to lead backend development and mentor junior developers. You'll modernize PHP codebases and introduce best practices in a collaborative environment. This fully remote role requires 7+ years of PHP experience, strong leadership skills, and a passion for improving engineering practices. The company offers competitive compensation and regular in-person meetups.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of PHP experience, with Laravel knowledge.
• Leadership mindset with the ability to mentor others.
• Strong database skills: query optimization and data modeling.

Responsibilities

• Lead backend development in the Laravel PHP monolith.
• Mentor and coach junior developers.
• Take ownership of platform stability and security.

Skills

PHP experience

Laravel knowledge

Database skills

Communication

DevOps knowledge

Tools

MySQL

AWS

Electron

Job description

Job Role: Principal PHP Software Engineer

Reference: BH-357p

Job Type: Permanent

Location: Fully Remote with in-person meetups every 2 months

Salary: up to £100,000 per annum

About the Client

Our client is a fast‑growing HealthTech company rethinking pharmacy workflows. They replace outdated systems with smart hardware and provide full onboarding and training. Their platform powers operations, integrates with NHS services, and supports robotics.

Overview

Our client is looking for a Principal PHP Software Engineer to take a leading role in their engineering team. You’ll be hands‑on with their Laravel‑based backend, while also guiding architectural decisions, mentoring engineers, and driving technical excellence.

You’ll collaborate closely with company directors (technical and non‑technical), support staff, and key partners like NHS England and NHS Digital to deliver mission‑critical features, integrate with complex healthcare protocols, and help mature the company’s engineering practices.

Beyond development, you’ll play a vital leadership role, supporting junior team members, championing testing and automation, and introducing robust DevOps and CI/CD processes.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead backend development in our Laravel PHP monolith, owning major projects end‑to‑end.
• Upgrade and modernise somewhat out‑of‑date PHP framework codebases.
• Introduce best practices and modern tooling.
• Mentor and coach junior developers, helping grow the team.
• Advocate for and embed automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, code quality, and robust review processes.
• Work closely with the leadership team to report monthly technical progress, including involvement in NHS stakeholder meetings and cross‑functional updates.
• Collaborate with support and installation teams to ensure smooth customer onboarding and operational stability.
• Take ownership of platform stability, patching processes, and software security.
• Design and optimise MySQL (RDS) databases for performance and scale, particularly for data retention and audit logging. MSSQL is involved, and is desirable as they have a small amount of this in play for customer reasons.
• Help drive DevOps maturity: automate deployments, and monitor systems.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to influence product direction and operational strategies.

Company Tech Stack

Backend:

PHP (Laravel), APIs (OAuth), WebSockets, Node.js (used in Electron apps)

Frontend:

PHP server‑side rendering (Laravel Blade), Vue.js, Bootstrap, JavaScript

Databases:

MySQL (RDS), MSSQL, Redis (ElasticCache)

Heavy data compliance: audit logging, long‑term data retention

Infrastructure & DevOps:

AWS (EC2, RDS, S3, WAF, ELB, Lambda, CloudFront, SNS, CloudWatch), manual deployments (in transition to CI/CD), OpenVPN, DirectConnect, VPC routing (split/full tunnel VPNs)

Desktop Apps:

Electron (Node.js backend + Vue.js frontend)

Requirements / Experience

• 7+ years of PHP experience, with Laravel knowledge
• Leadership mindset: ability to mentor others, shape processes, and push back when needed
• Hands‑on, sleeves‑rolled‑up problem solver who enjoys digging into systems and improving them
• Experience upgrading codebases and introducing modern PHP/Laravel practices
• Strong database skills: query optimisation, data modelling, large‑scale architecture
• Proven experience embedding automated testing and QA processes in teams
• Comfortable with DevOps, AWS services, and basic networking (DNS, DHCP, VPN, routing)
• Strong communicator who can represent the company in external stakeholder meetings

Additional / Desirable Experience

• NHS integration protocols: FHIR, HL7, CIS2, EPS, RTEC, PDS, DOS, DM+D
• Familiarity with integrating or communicating with robotic automation systems and integrating with physical devices
• Desktop app development with Electron
• CI/CD setup, rollback strategies, and deployment automation
• Sentry, NewRelic, or other observability tooling implementation