Senior Backend Engineer

LaraBench; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 50,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

LaraBench in the United Kingdom is seeking a Senior PHP Full Stack Developer for a permanent role based in Newcastle upon Tyne. The position offers autonomy and visibility across backend and frontend layers of a modern Laravel application using Docker, Redis and AWS.

Key requirements include PHP 8+ with Laravel 10+, Livewire and Blade, MySQL, Redis, and experience with Docker/docker-compose. The role emphasizes quality, CI practices and collaboration with DevOps/QA to deliver robust software.

Qualifications

• Proven experience with PHP 8+ and Laravel 10+ in production.
• Full stack capability across backend and frontend using Blade/Livewire.
• Experience with MySQL and Redis for caching and queues.
• Docker and docker-compose experience in containerised environments.
• Background job processing and queue-based workflows experience.
• Version control with Git and collaborative workflows.
• Strong communication and ability to work independently.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and development of backend services within a Laravel environment.
• Own service-layer logic and implement modular solutions for integrations.
• Collaborate to evolve queue handling, reliability and tracing.
• Work with DevOps and QA to enhance CI/CD pipelines and testing.
• Maintain Docker-based development environments and multiple queue workers.
• Proactively address technical debt and drive production readiness.
• Contribute to system integrations (RingCentral, Twilio, AWS APIs).
• Mentor teammates and promote best practices across the stack.
• Drive frontend tooling improvements with Livewire, TailwindCSS and Vite.

Skills

PHP 8+

Laravel 10+

Full stack development

Livewire

Blade templates

Docker

Redis

AWS

MySQL

CI/CD

Tools

Laravel

Docker

Redis

AWS

Vite

TailwindCSS

Node.js

Git

Job description

We are working with an established technology company that is growing its team and looking for a Senior PHP Full Stack Developer. This is a permanent role based in Newcastle upon Tyne, with a salary of 50000 to 60000. The role offers autonomy, visibility and the opportunity to work across both backend and frontend layers of a modern, containerised application using Laravel, the TALL stack, Docker, Redis and AWS.

Requirements

• Strong commercial experience with modern PHP 8.0+ and Laravel 10 or later, with a focus on building robust, maintainable systems.
• Confident working across the full stack, including templating (Blade), reactive components (Livewire) and modern frontend tooling (Vite, TailwindCSS, Node).
• Solid understanding of database design and optimisation, preferably with MySQL, and experience working with Redis for caching and queues.
• Comfortable working within containerised environments such as Docker and docker-compose.
• Practical experience implementing and debugging background job processing and queue-based workflows.
• Familiar with version control and modern development workflows using Git, pull requests and peer reviews.
• Clear communicator capable of explaining technical concepts and collaborating effectively with team members across disciplines.
• A pragmatic approach to testing and quality assurance, ideally with exposure to PHPUnit and CI practices.
• Ability to work independently on larger tasks while contributing to the overall technical direction of the project.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and development of backend services, ensuring scalable, testable and maintainable architecture within a modern Laravel environment.
• Take ownership of service-layer logic, addressing existing gaps and implementing clean, modular solutions to support integrations and business operations.
• Collaborate with the team to evolve queue job handling, improving reliability, traceability and error management across asynchronous processes.
• Work closely with DevOps and QA to enhance CI/CD pipelines, ensuring automated testing and deployments align with quality standards.
• Maintain and optimise local development and Docker-based environments, including multiple queue workers and supporting services.
• Proactively identify and resolve technical debt by reviewing existing items and shaping a clear path to production-readiness.
• Contribute to system integration efforts, particularly around third-party services such as RingCentral, Twilio, AWS and internal APIs.
• Uphold code quality through peer reviews, consistent patterns and mentoring others on best practices across the full stack.
• Drive improvements in frontend tooling and workflow, collaborating on UI components built with Livewire, TailwindCSS and Vite.
• Champion a culture of continuous improvement, staying current with Laravel ecosystem updates and contributing to strategic technical decisions.