Senior PHP Developer

ByteHire; United Kingdom; Remote; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote and flexible working

Collaborative engineering culture

Opportunities for technical growth and mentorship

Job summary

A cybersecurity company is looking for a Senior Software Engineer (PHP) to join their technical backend team. The role involves designing and maintaining systems for large-scale data processing and real-time alerting. Candidates should have over 5 years of experience, especially in PHP (Laravel) and Elasticsearch, and be proficient in MySQL. The position also includes mentoring junior engineers and ensuring compliance with secure coding practices. This role offers fully remote work and opportunities for technical growth.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of backend development experience with PHP and Laravel expertise.
• Hands-on experience with Elasticsearch for index design and query optimization.
• Strong MySQL knowledge, including schema design and indexing strategies.

Responsibilities

• Take ownership of requirements discovery and delivery planning.
• Design, develop and maintain backend services and REST APIs.
• Implement automated testing and maintain high code quality.

Skills

PHP (Laravel)

Elasticsearch

MySQL

Docker

CI/CD

Problem-solving

API design

Cloud-native architecture

Microservices

Tools

Kafka

Java

Golang

Python

Job description

Our client is a cybersecurity company helping organisations protect sensitive information through large-scale data collection, correlation, and real-time alerting. Their platform supports enterprise and government clients operating in high-trust environments.

Overview

Our client is building a cloud-native cybersecurity platform for large-scale data collection, correlation, and real-time alerting. Their systems process high volumes of data to deliver actionable intelligence for enterprise and government clients.

They are looking for a Senior Software Engineer (PHP) to join a small, highly technical backend team working on performance-critical, data-driven services in a security-focused environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Take ownership of requirements discovery, scope definition, and delivery planning for key projects and initiatives.
• Work closely with Product Owners and business stakeholders to take ideas from concept through to clearly defined user stories, technical approaches, and delivery estimates.
• Contribute to and help shape roadmaps and delivery plans, balancing business priorities, technical constraints, and engineering effort.
• Design, develop, and maintain backend services and REST APIs using PHP (Laravel v10).
• Own and evolve Elasticsearch implementations, including index design, mappings, query optimisation, aggregations, and performance tuning.
• Design and optimise MySQL schemas and queries for high-volume workloads, including indexing strategies and query performance analysis.
• Build and maintain data ingestion and processing pipelines from multiple internal and external sources.
• Design microservices and distributed systems supporting search, analytics, and alerting use cases.
• Deploy, monitor, and scale services using Docker, CI/CD pipelines, and AWS.
• Ensure secure coding practices and compliance with data protection and security requirements.
• Implement automated testing and maintain high standards of code quality and reliability.
• Write clear technical documentation covering APIs, data models, and system behaviour.
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers and contribute to architectural decision-making.

Tech Stack and Tools

• Primary Backend: PHP (Laravel) – core application and API development
• Supporting Services: Java and Golang (smaller services and components), Python where appropriate
• Messaging & Streaming: Kafka (or similar)

Requirements/experience

• 5+ years of backend development experience, with strong PHP and Laravel expertise.
• Deep, hands-on experience with Elasticsearch, including index design, query optimisation, and performance tuning in production.
• Strong MySQL knowledge, including schema design, indexing strategies, and query optimisation.
• Experience building data-heavy or search-driven systems.
• Solid understanding of API design, microservices, and cloud-native architecture.
• Practical experience with Docker, cloud deployments, and CI/CD workflows.
• Strong understanding of secure coding and system hardening practices.
• Experience writing automated tests (unit and functional).
• Strong problem-solving skills and ownership mindset.
• Experience with large-scale data ingestion or cross-referencing platforms.
• Knowledge of cybersecurity, threat intelligence, or data protection domains.
• Hands-on experience with monitoring, observability, and performance profiling.
• Experience integrating analytics, AI, or LLM-powered features.
• Working knowledge of Python or Java.
• Fully remote and flexible working
• Supportive, collaborative engineering culture
• Opportunity to work on data-intensive, mission-critical systems
• Exposure to modern backend, cloud, and search technologies
• Clear opportunities for technical growth and mentorship