Senior PHP Backend Engineer - Remote & High-Impact Systems

Smart Working; Karachi Division; Remote; PKR 24,931,000 - 41,551,000; Full time

Job summary

Smart Working is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to own large-scale production systems handling GPS, telematics, and video data. This full-time, remote role focuses on backend excellence, security, and scalable architecture for public-sector clients.

You’ll join ~10 senior developers, drive migrations to Laravel, and collaborate on AI-related work within a fast-moving remote-first environment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of commercial PHP backend development at Expert level.
• 5+ years of experience with large-scale SaaS or complex production systems at Expert level.
• 3+ years of PostgreSQL experience at Advanced level.
• 5+ years of API design and third-party integration experience at Advanced level.
• 3+ years of high-volume data processing experience at Advanced level (IoT/telemetry data ingestion acceptable).
• 3+ years of Laravel and/or Yii2 experience at Advanced level.
• 3+ years of PHPUnit experience at Advanced level; Pest/Codeception may substitute.
• 2+ years of microservices or monolith-decomposition experience at Intermediate level.
• 2+ years of AWS experience at Intermediate level.
• Experience in telematics, fleet or logistics domains; IoT/location tech experience may substitute.
• Experience with video/CCTV large media files at Intermediate level.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the PHP backend that ingests GPS and telematics data, safety hardware events and DVR video, and sends real-time alerts.
• Build and maintain APIs used by the web platform, mobile application and integration partners.
• Deliver the ongoing Yii2-to-Laravel migration, with Yii2 at end of life and ~1 year remaining to complete the migration.
• Deliver the ongoing MariaDB-to-PostgreSQL migration.
• Support the decomposition of the existing monolith into microservices.
• Take over systems from a retiring contractor and become productive quickly despite limited documentation.
• Support the backend for the AI product line, collaborating with the computer vision lead.
• Take end-to-end ownership of production systems with strong technical judgement.
• Work independently within a small senior team and contribute to AI-related work.
• Apply architectural judgement to microservices and migrations, ensuring data integrity during migration.
• Contribute to production practices including Bitbucket Pipelines and PHPUnit.
• Ramp up quickly for start date and work with local authorities’ production systems.

Skills

PHP backend

SaaS

PostgreSQL

API design

High-volume data

Laravel

Yii2

PHPUnit

Microservices

AWS

Telematics

Video handling

Tools

Laravel

Yii2

Job description

Smart Working is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to own large-scale production systems handling GPS, telematics, and video data. This full-time, remote role focuses on backend excellence, security, and scalable architecture for public-sector clients.

You’ll join ~10 senior developers, drive migrations to Laravel, and collaborate on AI-related work within a fast-moving remote-first environment.