Software Developer - Online Prize Competitions - Exclusive

VanRath; Belfast City District; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 62,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

Career progression

Competitive salary

Job summary

VanRath in Northern Ireland is looking for a Software Developer to join a growing online prize competition business. You will design, develop and maintain scalable web applications using PHP, Laravel and MySQL, working across backend and frontend to implement new features and improve performance.

The role offers hybrid working, a competitive salary and clear career progression within a high-volume transactional platform used by a growing customer base.

Qualifications

• Proven PHP development experience with Laravel.
• Experience building high-traffic, scalable web apps.
• Strong MySQL design and query optimization.
• Experience with REST APIs and third-party services.
• Full-stack development across backend and frontend.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop and maintain scalable PHP/Laravel apps.
• Build and optimise high-traffic platforms for reliability.
• Develop REST APIs and integrate external services.
• Collaborate with stakeholders and perform code reviews.

Skills

PHP

Laravel

MySQL

REST APIs

Git

Docker

CI/CD

AWS

Tailwind CSS

Livewire

Alpine.js

Tools

Git version control

Docker

AWS Console

Job description

Job Description

My client, a growing online prize competition business, is hiring a Software Developer to join their existing technology team in Northern Ireland. This is a key position within the development team, working on a high-traffic, customer-facing platform and helping to develop new features while improving the scalability, performance and reliability of the existing application.
Competitive salary
Hybrid working
Flexible working
Permanent position
Clear career progression
You will be joining a growing technology team responsible for developing and scaling an innovative online platform used by a large and expanding customer base. The role offers the opportunity to work on a high-volume transactional website where performance, reliability and user experience are critical.
As a Software Developer, you will design, develop and maintain scalable web applications using PHP, Laravel and MySQL. You will work across both backend and frontend development, building new functionality, optimising existing systems and helping ensure the platform can continue to scale as traffic and transaction volumes increase.
The successful candidate will ideally have experience working on high-traffic websites or transactional platforms, with previous experience in the prize competition, gaming, betting, lottery, ecommerce, fintech or similar industries highly desirable.
The Person

• Strong commercial experience with PHP and modern object-oriented development.
• Strong hands‑on experience with Laravel, including MVC, Eloquent, queues/jobs, events, middleware, authentication and caching.
• Excellent MySQL / SQL skills, including database design, indexing, query optimisation and transactions.
• Proven experience developing and supporting high-traffic, high-volume or transactional websites/applications.
• Strong Full Stack development experience across backend and frontend technologies.
• Experience developing and integrating REST APIs and third‑party services.
• Strong understanding of application performance, scalability and optimisation.
• Experience with Git, code reviews, testing and software development best practices.
• Strong debugging and problem‑solving skills, including experience resolving production issues.
• Experience with Tailwind CSS, Livewire and/or Alpine.js would be highly desirable.
• Experience with Docker, CI/CD, AWS/cloud platforms, caching or background processing would be advantageous.
• Previous experience within online competitions, gaming, betting, lottery, ecommerce, payments or other high‑volume consumer platforms would be highly desirable.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to work effectively with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• A hands‑on approach with the ability to take ownership of technical solutions from design through to deployment.