Senior Software Engineer

PayHOA, LLC; Lexington (KY); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 145,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Competitive base salary

Medical, dental, and vision

401(k) with company contribution

Flexible PTO

Job summary

PayHOA, a Lexington-based software company, is hiring a hands-on Senior Software Engineer to lead complex features end to end on our Laravel platform. You’ll design, write, review, and ship code weekly in a hybrid setup with in-person team days in Lexington, KY.

You’ll work with Claude Code and AI features, build reliable software, and collaborate with product teams to deliver impact while maintaining quality and security. Strong ownership and communication are essential for success.

Qualifications

• 5+ years building production software with PHP and Laravel
• Strong SQL and relational data modeling
• Experience shipping a production SaaS product
• Clear written communication and ownership mindset
• Within a reasonable drive of the Lexington office for in-person days

Responsibilities

• Lead complex features end to end from design through release
• Design and ship AI-powered features with reliability and cost control
• Ensure code quality with tests and performance considerations
• Collaborate with Product to drive dependable improvements for customers
• Mentor teammates and help shape engineering standards

Skills

PHP

Laravel

SQL

Production SaaS

Ownership mindset

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

Codex

MCP servers

Custom skills

Job description

• Reports to: Director of Research & Development
• Partners with: Product Owner, Product Analysts, Product Designer, Principal Engineers, and fellow engineers
• Location: Hybrid, with in-person team days at our Lexington, KY office
• Salary range: $130,000–$145,000 base, plus stock options and benefits

About PayHOA

PayHOA is the all-in-one software that lets self-managed HOAs and condo associations run their communities 100% online — dues, payments, accounting, communication, and more. More than 6,000 communities trust us, customers rate us 4.7 stars on Capterra and G2, and our support team holds a 98.7% satisfaction score.

Founded in Lexington in 2018, PayHOA bootstrapped its way to profitability before raising a $27.5M Series A in 2024. We're still a close-knit team where everyone's work is felt by customers and teammates alike, and we're looking for people who want to build something lasting together.

Mission: Powerfully simple community management, for all.

Values: Always Leveling Up · Own the Outcome · Engineer Powerful Simplicity · Listen. Solve. Wow. · Proud of the Work, Proud of the Place

About the Role

We're hiring a hands-on Senior Software Engineer to lead complex features from idea to production on our Laravel platform. This is a building role, not a managing one — you'll design, write, review, and ship code every week. We're a hybrid team. We get together at our Lexington office for planning, pairing, and team days, and work from home the rest of the time.

Claude Code is part of every phase of how we build, and we're shipping AI features to customers, from intelligent assistants to document understanding to agentic workflows. You'll do both — build with AI every day, and build AI into the product.

What success looks like in year one

• You lead complex features end to end, from design through release, with risks raised early and few surprises
• You've designed and shipped at least one AI-powered feature that customers use
• An area of the platform you own is measurably faster, safer, or better tested than when you found it
• The team moves faster because of you, through your reviews, pairing, and the standards and AI workflows you help shape

Why this role

• Your work reaches thousands of communities and moves real money for them, so craft matters
• AI-first engineering for real — Claude Code is our primary tool, paid for, and used across the whole development lifecycle
• A stable, Series A-backed company with a close-knit team and real ownership of your work

What You'll Do

Delivery and design

• Lead complex initiatives end to end — break the work down, sequence it, and keep it visible
• Make sound design calls that balance speed and long-term maintainability, and document the significant ones
• Raise risks early, with options, before they become surprises

AI-powered product and workflow

• Design and build AI-integrated features with care for reliability, cost, and user trust
• Validate model outputs, enforce data boundaries, and make automated actions auditable
• Use agentic tools to accelerate delivery without giving up understanding of the code you ship

Quality, security, and performance

• Write readable, maintainable code with the right tests. Performance, reliability, and accessibility are part of done
• Handle customer, payment, and personal data responsibly in a multi-tenant platform
• Fix problems at the source and leave code better than you found it

Collaboration and leadership

• Give and receive reviews focused on correctness and simplicity
• Unblock and mentor teammates, and help shape our engineering standards
• Work closely with Product to turn direction into dependable improvements for customers

What You Bring

Required

• 5+ years building production software, with deep PHP and Laravel experience
• Daily, hands-on use of agentic AI development tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, MCP servers, custom skills, or similar), and something you built with them that you can walk us through
• Strong SQL and relational data modeling
• Experience shipping and supporting a production SaaS product
• Clear written communication and an ownership mindset — you take responsibility for results, not just tasks
• Within a reasonable drive of our Lexington office for in-person team days

Preferred

• Angular, or another modern TypeScript front-end framework
• AWS experience
• Building LLM features in production (tool use, retrieval, and evaluation)
• Payments, accounting, fintech, or property-management software
• Mentoring engineers or leading a technical initiative across a team

• Competitive base salary ($130,000–$145,000)
• Stock options, so you share in what we build
• Medical, dental, and vision, with $0 employee-only premiums on our base plans
• 401(k) with a 4% company contribution, fully vested from day one — whether or not you contribute
• Flexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, and paid sick time
• Paid parental leave, including 12 weeks of paid maternity leave
• Company-paid life insurance, HSA and FSA options, and 24/7 counseling and wellness resources
• A MacBook and the tools you need
• Funded training, courses, and conferences

Engineers at PayHOA turn ideas into reliable software that thousands of communities count on. At PayHOA, excellence is a shared habit. We build software that communities trust with their money and their homes, and we hold a high bar for it together.

PayHOA is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Need an accommodation during the hiring process? Email [e-mail]. PayHOA participates in E-Verify.