Why this role exists
We’re building and evolving a custom PHP web application that powers real-world operations. No hand-holding frameworks here — just clean, object‑oriented PHP, RESTful services, and a stack that rewards engineers who love understanding how things actually work .
If you enjoy getting close to the metal with Core/Vanilla PHP, care about performance, and can comfortably move between data layers, UI, and cloud infrastructure, you’ll feel right at home.
- Ship features end‑to‑end in a framework‑free, OOP PHP codebase (namespaces, interfaces, traits, SOLID principles).
- Design and implement RESTful endpoints (JSON), including request validation, pagination, error handling, and versioning.
- Write robust SQL (DDL/DML), optimise queries and indexes, and integrate via PDO with prepared statements.
- Work with MongoDB for document‑oriented use cases; design efficient schemas and aggregation pipelines where relevant.
- Build and enhance front‑end interactions with jQuery , HTML/CSS , and Tailwind CSS for fast, clean UI work.
- Integrate external APIs (REST/Webhooks), handle oauth/token flows, retries, idempotency, and rate‑limit strategy.
- Operate in AWS : deploy apps on Elastic Beanstalk , manage assets in S3 , use DynamoDB where appropriate, and keep environments healthy (logs, scaling, env vars).
- Handle SSL/TLS certificate management and DNS via Cloudflare ; ensure zero‑downtime renewals and sane caching rules.
- Work with WordPress CMS where needed (content ingestion/integration, headless endpoints, custom fields/templates).
- Pair closely with another Senior Developer who knows the platform inside‑out; take part in code reviews and architecture discussions.
- Own quality: write pragmatic tests, instrument metrics, document decisions, and leave the codebase tidier than you found it.
- No modern PHP frameworks. We use Core/Vanilla PHP with strong OOP. If your superpower is Laravel or Symfony only , this role isn’t the right fit.
- We follow OOP and RESTful design practices, emphasising clarity, testability, and performance.
- We value speed with discipline : small PRs, sensible testing, continuous improvement.
- Core/Vanilla PHP (7.x/8.x) with OOP : interfaces, traits, namespaces, dependency injection, SOLID.
- RESTful API design & implementation (JSON), auth patterns, and versioning.
- SQL mastery (query optimisation, indexing, transactions) and PDO best practices.
- MongoDB fundamentals (schema design, aggregations, performance basics).
- Front‑end: jQuery , semantic HTML , modern CSS , and Tailwind CSS utility workflows.
- External API integrations (OAuth, webhooks, retries, idempotency, error/bounce handling).
- AWS: Elastic Beanstalk deployments, S3 lifecycle, DynamoDB usage, environment configuration, logging/monitoring basics.
- Security : input validation, CS