Senior Full Stack Engineer + Team Lead (PHP - Laravel)

Storyteq; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 500,000 - 800,000; Full time

Job summary

A tech company focusing on creative production is seeking a skilled developer with team leadership capabilities to enhance their platform. You will be responsible for full-stack development using TypeScript, JavaScript, and PHP (Laravel), mentoring engineers, and ensuring system scalability. The ideal candidate has over 5 years of experience and a passion for optimizing technology in a fast-paced environment. Join a diverse workforce dedicated to innovation and collaboration in Cape Town.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in full-stack product delivery.
• Strong backend development capabilities in Node.js/PHP.
• Experience with modern front-end frameworks like Vue.js.

Responsibilities

• Build robust backend services and frontends with real product impact.
• Coach and mentor engineers in a team setting.
• Lead technical delivery for domain initiatives.

Skills

Full-stack development

TypeScript/JavaScript

PHP (Laravel)

Node.js

Vue.js or modern front-end frameworks

Job description

Storyteq helps marketing and creative teams in top brands to scale their creative production and gain control over their marketing campaigns. Through our platform, our clients can streamline campaign workflows, automate their creative production through templates & AI and activate engaging campaigns that go to market faster.

We believe creativity takes time, but creative production shouldn’t. Since 2016 our mission has been to revolutionize the way creative assets are created and used. Magic happens when we let technology empower creativity. Our endless curiosity and relentless commitment to our customers lies at the heart of our problem‑solving approach. This shared mission is woven into our values: we dream big, think differently, and are stronger together.

About the job

You will be a part of the domain where we work to enable global enterprises to efficiently scale up their content creation. You’ll take in content from sources like Photoshop, Figma and After Effects, or design it in our AI‑enabled web‑driven editor and take it to the next level. You’ll work directly with other Developers, Designers, Quality Engineers, DevOps Engineers, and Product Owners to deliver the best platform for our users.

Your role will revolve around all the different elements that will bring our product to new heights: implementing new features, scaling existing capabilities, and making our product more amazing every day. The team works with strong goals and a good balance of product & engineering roadmap features, ensuring we keep our technology and product on track.

In addition to being an individual contributor, this role includes a Team Lead component. You will provide lightweight people and process management within a cross‑functional agile team of up to six engineers. This means supporting, coaching and mentoring your team members through regular 1:1s, performance reviews and ad‑hoc catch‑ups, aiming to create a culture of ownership, autonomy and collaboration. You will be responsible for promoting standard working practices and iterating on processes to optimise delivery.

Key Responsibilities

Engineering Responsibilities

• Build and ship robust backend services and frontends with real product impact
• Ensure systems are scalable, performant and maintainable
• Collaborate across teams to integrate services and deliver end‑to‑end value
• Model business domains into clean, performant data structures
• Contribute to architectural design and communicate trade‑offs effectively

Team Lead Responsibilities

• Coach and mentor engineers to help them grow technically and professionally
• Lead technical delivery for initiatives within a domain or project
• Facilitate predictable planning, prioritisation and delivery in an agile environment
• Foster psychological safety, inclusion and a sustainable team culture
• Identify and address conflicts early and constructively
• Provide clear feedback, performance support and career development guidance

Requirements

Core Technical Requirements

• 5+ years of hands‑on experience delivering full‑stack products with TypeScript/JavaScript and PHP (Laravel)
• Strong backend development experience with Node.js and/or PHP (Laravel)
• Experience with Vue.js or another modern front‑end framework
• Solid experience designing and integrating REST and/or GraphQL APIs
• Comfortable working in monorepo environments and modular architectures
• Proficient in data modelling and SQL/NoSQL databases
• Familiar with testing best practices, performance tuning, and scalable design principles
• Strong architectural thinking and ability to communicate trade‑offs clearly

Team Leadership Requirements

• Experience leading and coaching engineers, including feedback and performance support
• Ability to plan, prioritise and deliver predictably within an agile context
• Conflict‑resolution skills to surface and address issues constructively
• Proactive, results‑driven and comfortable working in a fast‑growing tech scale‑up
• Strong communication skills (written and verbal) in English

Benefits

We champion and welcome diversity in our workforce and ensure all job applicants receive equal and fair treatment, regardless of age, race, gender or gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, disability or nationality. We are not only committed to increasing the visibility and recognition of talent from under‑represented groups within our organisation, but the wider industry too. At the end of the day, we make sure we take time to look after ourselves, each other, and the planet, because we’re always stronger together. ITG has a number of community groups (ERGs) available to employees which offer a safe space for like‑minded colleagues, with shared interests to connect, socialise and check in with each other. These include Black ITGers Together, LGBTQ+ Together, Mens Health Together, Muslims Together, Neurodiversity Together, Working Parents and Carers Together and Women In Tech Together.