Senior PHP Engineer

Airalo; United States; Remote; USD 77,000 - 121,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote

Job summary

Airalo is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to join our globally distributed, fully remote team. You will evolve a high-traffic PHP backend serving millions of travelers, balancing architectural rigor with rapid innovation.

You will mentor teammates, tackle scalability and reliability challenges, and participate in on-call rotations after a ramp-up period. All collaboration occurs in English across time zones.

Qualifications

• Senior backend engineer with deep PHP expertise.
• Architectural foundation, with hands-on Laravel or Symfony experience and willingness to adopt Laravel.
• Proven track record building and operating scalable, production systems.
• Excellent written and spoken English for meetings and async collaboration.
• Must reside in and be eligible to work in Spain.
• Comfort with on-call responsibilities in a globally distributed team.

Responsibilities

• Lead evolution of a large-scale PHP backend for a global user base.
• Solve architecture, performance, and reliability challenges.
• Mentor teammates and promote ownership and technical mastery.
• Participate in on-call rotations after ramping to support 24/7 service.
• Collaborate with a fully remote, globally distributed team in English.

Skills

PHP

Laravel

Symfony

Distributed systems thinking

English communication

Job description

Role overview

Senior Backend Engineer joining a globally distributed, fully remote team to evolve a high-traffic platform serving more than 20 million users in the travel connectivity space. The role emphasizes deep PHP expertise, architectural rigor, and a mentor mindset while balancing rapid innovation with long-term system stability.

Responsibilities

• Lead the evolution of a large-scale PHP backend supporting millions of global users
• Tackle complex architectural challenges spanning performance, scalability, and reliability
• Mentor teammates and contribute to a culture of ownership and technical mastery
• Participate in an on-call rotation after a six-month ramp to maintain 24/7 service reliability
• Balance rapid feature delivery with long-term system stability and code quality
• Collaborate across a fully remote, globally distributed engineering organization in English

Requirements

• Senior-level experience as a backend engineer with deep PHP expertise
• Strong architectural foundation, with hands-on experience in Laravel or a strong Symfony background willing to adopt Laravel
• Track record of building and operating scalable, production systems at meaningful traffic levels
• Excellent written and spoken English for meetings and asynchronous collaboration
• Must currently reside in and be fully eligible to work in Spain
• Comfort with on-call responsibilities and distributed-systems thinking

Nice to have

• Experience with high-traffic consumer platforms
• Familiarity with microservices, RESTful APIs, and modern PHP frameworks and patterns

Benefits and work setup

Full-time permanent contract via an Employer of Record, fully remote from anywhere in Spain. Paid on-call standby fees plus overtime pay, with guaranteed rest periods after night incidents and a delayed start of six months before on-call duties begin. Rotations are split between weekdays and weekends to minimize fatigue. The team values ownership, trust, flexibility, and a healthy work-life balance.