Senior PHP Backend Engineer - Remote, Microservices & Data

Openkrill; United States; Remote; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Smart Working is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to own large-scale production systems for GPS, telematics, video, and IoT data. You will join a small in-house team and drive backend initiatives, including significant migrations from Yii2 to Laravel and MariaDB to PostgreSQL.

This remote-first role emphasizes security, GDPR compliance, and data integrity for public sector clients, with a start date targeted for November 2026 and a strong focus on autonomous, senior-level execution.

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.
• 3+ years of Laravel and/or Yii2 experience at Advanced level.
• 3+ years of PHPUnit experience at Advanced level.
• 2+ years of microservices or monolith-decomposition experience at Intermediate level.
• 2+ years of AWS experience 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 approximately a 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, working alongside the developer currently leading computer vision work; the exact scope is still to be confirmed.
• Take end-to-end ownership of production systems rather than requiring prior people-management or project-lead experience.
• Work independently within a small senior team while collaborating closely on AI-related work.
• Apply architectural judgement to microservices and database migrations, with particular attention to data integrity during migration.
• Work flexibly within established practices, including Bitbucket Pipelines and PHPUnit, in a small team with light process.
• Contribute as a problem-solver, applying senior technical judgement to production engineering decisions.
• Work thoroughly on production systems used by local authorities while ramping up quickly for the required start date.

Skills

PHP

Laravel

Yii2

PostgreSQL

API design

Microservices

AWS

Security/GDPR

Tools

Bitbucket Pipelines

Job description

Smart Working is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to own large-scale production systems for GPS, telematics, video, and IoT data. You will join a small in-house team and drive backend initiatives, including significant migrations from Yii2 to Laravel and MariaDB to PostgreSQL.

This remote-first role emphasizes security, GDPR compliance, and data integrity for public sector clients, with a start date targeted for November 2026 and a strong focus on autonomous, senior-level execution.