PHP Developer

Cleeng; United States; Remote; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working hours

Remote/hybrid option

Paid sick leave

Events & celebrations

Job summary

Cleeng is hiring a backend PHP engineer to design, build, and maintain features in the Core Platform (PHP 8.4, Laminas Mezzio, Doctrine, MySQL) and expose them via REST APIs. You will work AI-first, daily using coding agents for implementation, testing, and navigating a large legacy codebase.

You will own features end-to-end with strong code review and security focus in a remote-first, international team. Flexible hours and global collaboration are offered.

Qualifications

• Strong PHP 8.x experience with OOP and SOLID design
• Experience with PHP frameworks (Laminas/Mezzio) and Doctrine ORM
• Proficient in MySQL optimization and REST API design
• Hands-on experience with automated testing (PHPUnit) and TDD mindset
• Ability to navigate large legacy codebases and refactor with AI assistance
• Ownership mentality: from ticket to production with strong code review
• Clear written communication in a remote-first, agile team

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain backend features in Core Platform (PHP 8.4, Laminas Mezzio, Doctrine, MySQL) and expose them through REST APIs
• Work AI-first daily, using coding agents for implementation, test generation, refactoring, and navigating legacy code
• Improve the context agents operate from (docs, conventions, tests, tooling) to enable faster shipping
• Maintain correctness, design quality, and security; perform rigorous code reviews
• Launch features with dashboards and alerts; monitor and contribute to operational health
• Contribute to platform modernization via incremental refactoring and removal of legacy components
• Collaborate in a remote-first, international team; share AI workflows and lessons learned

Skills

AI coding assistants

PHP 8.x

Object-Oriented Design

SOLID principles

Doctrine ORM

PHP framework

MySQL optimization

REST API design

JUnit / TDD

Legacy code refactoring

Code review

Remote teamwork

Tools

Laminas Mezzio

Doctrine ORM

MySQL

PHPUnit

Job description

Founded in 2011, Cleeng is the Subscriber Retention Management® Company. Cleeng unifies the entire subscriber experience across web and mobile apps from a single platform, empowering D2C companies to simplify subscription management and maximize customer lifetime value.

Our award-winning Subscriber Retention Management (SRM®) suite delivers comprehensive solutions through an integrated approach - from flexible web payments and in-app subscriptions to sophisticated recurring billing and AI-powered customer support.

Trusted by industry leaders, including the NHL, Big Ten Network, The Weather Channel, TOD/BeIN, and NHK, Cleeng’s complete suite helps businesses reduce churn and drive sustainable revenue growth across every channel.

• AI-first engineering practice: daily, fluent use of AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Copilot, Cursor) to accelerate delivery — prompting effectively, reviewing generated code critically, and knowing when to accept, correct or reject it
• Proficient usage of modern PHP (8.x) with strong OOP and SOLID design judgement
• Ability to independently delivery in a mainstream PHP framework, with Doctrine or another ORM
• MySQL query optimisation
• Experience with REST API design and consumption, with automated testing in PHPUnit and a TDD mindset
• Confidence navigating and incrementally refactoring large legacy codebases, increasingly with AI assistance
• Ownership of features from ticket to production, with a quality and reliability mindset
• Clear written communication and autonomy in a remote-first, agile team

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and maintain backend features in our Core Platform (PHP 8.4, Laminas Mezzio, Doctrine, MySQL) and expose them through well-designed REST APIs — working AI-first, with coding agents as your default tool rather than an occasional shortcut.

• Work AI-first, every day — use AI coding agents for implementation, test generation, refactoring, and navigating unfamiliar parts of the legacy codebase. Learn what they’re good and bad at, build the prompting and context habits that make them reliable, and share what works with the team.

• Raise the ceiling on what agents can do here — improve the context they work from (docs, conventions, tests, tooling, MCP servers, agent instructions) so the whole squad ships faster, not just you. Treat “the agent couldn’t figure this out” as a signal about our codebase, not just about the agent.

• Stay the engineer in the loop — you own correctness, design quality, and security of everything you merge, whoever or whatever wrote the first draft. Strong code review judgment matters more, not less, when volume goes up.

• Own what you ship — “you build it, you run it”: launch features with dashboards and alerts, monitor them, and participate in the operational health of your squad’s domain — using AI to speed up incident triage, log analysis, and root-cause work.

• Contribute to the modernisation of the platform: incremental refactoring, removal of legacy components, and the “leave it better than you found it” principle — using agents to make large-scale, low-risk changes that were previously too expensive to attempt.

• Investigate and resolve bugs and escalations in your domain, collaborating with QA on shift-left, AI-assisted test automation.

• Collaborate closely in a remote-first, international team: code reviews, design discussions, and PHP Guild alignment — including sharing AI workflows, prompts, and lessons learned across squads

• Flexible working hours and form of employment;

• Possibility to work 100% remotely or in hybird model; depending on the geo location

• 100 % paid sick leave within the agreed limits;

• Events, celebrations