PHP Engineer

Love2shop; Liverpool; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 65,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday per year

Company pension

Electric Car Scheme

Staff Everyday Benefits card

Corporate travel scheme

Kitchen with free tea and coffee

Faith room and dietary facilities

Family-friendly leave

Volunteer days

Job summary

Love2shop is seeking a PHP Software Engineer to join our Commercial Product team in Liverpool. You will contribute across the full software lifecycle, crafting scalable, secure PHP/Laravel applications and driving best practices.

You'll work in an agile environment, participate in code reviews, and help shape features from conception to deployment. A strong focus on testing, performance, and collaboration with cross-functional teams is essential.

Qualifications

• 2-3+ years of professional Software Engineer experience.
• Proficiency with PHP 8+ and Laravel framework.
• Strong understanding of OOP and SOLID/Clean Code principles.
• Experience with relational and non-relational databases (MySQL, Redis).
• Experience with REST and SOAP APIs; familiarity with testing (PHPUnit).
• Experience with Git, CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, CircleCI).
• Familiarity with Scrum/Kanban and AWS (EC2, SQS, RDS, Elasticache).
• Exposure to Java development or microservices is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Develop high-quality, scalable PHP code adhering to SOLID principles.
• Contribute throughout the software development lifecycle in an agile team.
• Write clean, well-documented code meeting functional/non-functional requirements.
• Participate in code reviews and improve team standards.
• Collaborate to drive continuous improvement in development processes and tools.
• Design and implement features with a focus on security best practices.
• Identify risks and propose mitigation strategies.
• Support production applications and services, including out-of-hours rota.

Skills

PHP 8+

Laravel Framework

OOP & SOLID

REST APIs

TDD with PHPUnit

Git

CI/CD

Scrum Kanban

AWS Cloud

Tools

GitHub Actions

CircleCI

Kubernetes

DynamoDB

IaC

Job description

Join our Commercial Product team at Love2shop and help us build world-class, customer-facing products that delight our users.

As a PHP Software Engineer, you will be a key player in a dynamic, fast-paced environment, contributing to all stages of the software development lifecycle - from analysis and design to coding, testing, and deployment.

We are looking for a passionate and pragmatic engineer who is committed to writing clean, well-tested code and pushing the boundaries of what our team can achieve. If you are a curious problem-solver who enjoys working across the entire software stack, this is the perfect opportunity for you to grow your skills and make a real impact.

Key responsibilities

• Develop high-quality, scalable code that adheres to SOLID principles and our solution architecture.
• Contribute to all stages of the software development lifecycle within an agile team, from feature conception to delivery.
• Write and maintain clean, well-documented code that meets both functional and non-functional requirements.
• Actively participate in code reviews, sharing knowledge and helping to improve team standards.
• Collaborate with team members to drive continuous improvement in our development processes and tools.
• Contribute to the design and implementation of new features, with a strong focus on security best practices.
• Proactively identify and communicate project risks to team leads and product managers, proposing clear mitigation strategies.
• Ability to work under pressure and manage work load unsupervised providing quality on time deployments.
• Provide support for production applications and services as part of an out-of-hours rota.

Essential skills and experience

• A minimum of 2-3 years of professional experience as a Software Engineer.
• Proven experience developing with PHP 8+, including the Laravel Framework (10/11/12).
• Strong understanding of object-oriented programming (OOP) and software design principles (e.g., SOLID, Clean Code).
• Proficiency with relational and non-relational databases, specifically MySQL (5.7/8.x) and Redis.
• Experience with TDD (Test-Driven Development) using tools like PHPUnit and mocking frameworks.
• Practical knowledge of building and integrating with REST and SOAP APIs.
• Experience with Git for source control and CI/CD pipelines using tools like GitHub Actions and CircleCI.
• A strong grasp of agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban).
• Experience with AWS Cloud services, including EC2, SQS, RDS, and Elasticache.

Additional skills and experience

It would be great if you already have: -

• Exposure to or experience with Java development
• An understanding of event-driven architecture and message queues (Laravel Horizon, SQS)
• Familiarity with containerisation and orchestration tools like Kubernetes
• Experience with microservices or service-oriented architecture
• Knowledge of front-end technologies such as HTML, CSS, Sass, and TailwindCSS
• Experience with testing tools like Cypress or Selenium
• Familiarity with NoSQL databases like DynamoDB
• Understanding of DevSecOps principles
• Experience working in a PCI-DSS compliant environment
• Experience of DevOps practices (IaC, configuring CI/CD, automation, and infrastructure management)

Our benefits if you decide to join us:

• 25 days’ holiday per year, plus bank holidays
• Company pension scheme
• Electric Car Scheme
• Staff Everyday Benefits card offering discounts with multiple retailers (10%)
• Corporate travel scheme with Merseyrail, Northern rail, Arriva & Transport for Wales
• Fabulous kitchen space which offers free tea and coffee
• Faith room open to all denominations along with dedicated kitchen space for Halal and Kosher food preparation
• Family friendly leave
• Community volunteering policy which allows you 2 days per year to support the community with charitable events

As a disability-confident committed company, we have a passion for championing equality. We welcome all colleagues into a work environment where success is attainable for everyone, regardless of disability, age, race, religion, gender identity, or sexual orientation. We are committed to ensuring that everyone has equal access to growth and opportunities in our workplace.