AI-Driven Backend Engineer (PHP + AWS Lambda)

Bear Claw; Evanston (IL); On-site; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Bear Claw, an AI-powered recruiting platform, is hiring a Middle Backend Developer to help build and scale services powering the product. You'll work primarily in PHP on a serverless AWS Lambda stack backed by MySQL, with AI features written in Python using PostgreSQL.

This hands-on role offers ownership over features, opportunities to grow into more senior technical work, and collaboration with product, frontend, and other engineers to deliver end-to-end solutions.

Qualifications

• 2–4 years of backend development experience.
• Proficient PHP in production.
• Experience with AWS Lambda/serverless architectures.
• Strong MySQL data modeling and query performance.
• Working knowledge of Python and PostgreSQL.
• Experience designing REST APIs and using Git, automated tests.
• Interest in AI/LLM features.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain PHP backend services on AWS Lambda.
• Model, query, and optimize data in MySQL with proper indexing.
• Support AI Agent code in Python with PostgreSQL backing.
• Build scalable AI-enabled features from prototype to production.
• Write high-quality, tested code following best practices.
• Participate in code reviews and provide/receive feedback.
• Integrate third-party APIs and internal services securely.
• Monitor performance, reliability, and cost of serverless functions.
• Contribute to documentation and process improvements.
• Collaborate with product, frontend, and engineers to ship features end-to-end.

Skills

PHP

AWS Lambda

MySQL

PostgreSQL

Python

REST APIs

Git

Automated Testing

Serverless Architecture

Tools

Docker

CloudFormation

API Gateway

S3

Job description

Bear Claw, an AI-powered recruiting platform, is hiring a Middle Backend Developer to help build and scale services powering the product. You'll work primarily in PHP on a serverless AWS Lambda stack backed by MySQL, with AI features written in Python using PostgreSQL.

This hands-on role offers ownership over features, opportunities to grow into more senior technical work, and collaboration with product, frontend, and other engineers to deliver end-to-end solutions.