Senior PHP Developer

About the role

This Senior PHP Developer role at Talentgrator involves working on a high-load platform that processes significant volumes of requests and data daily. The core product is an enterprise monolith with a modular design. Candidates will be responsible for designing, developing, and optimizing key modules, ensuring the codebase is reliable, maintainable, and scalable. The position requires taking technical ownership of critical business domains and services within this complex environment.

The role emphasizes architectural contributions, including participating in decision-making for the large monolith and designing integration patterns for databases and external systems. A key focus is on improving modularity and maintaining clear boundaries between platform components. This includes significant work on data layer optimization, designing efficient data models, optimizing MySQL queries for high-volume workloads, and contributing to analytical solutions using ClickHouse.

Beyond core development, the Senior PHP Developer will work with event-driven architecture, designing and maintaining asynchronous processing solutions with Apache Kafka to build reliable integrations. Observability is also a critical aspect, involving integrating telemetry using OpenTelemetry, analyzing performance, troubleshooting production incidents, and contributing to monitoring, logging, and tracing practices. The role also involves promoting engineering excellence through code reviews, mentorship, and collaboration with various stakeholders.

Skills that matter here

• PHP 8.x: This is the primary language for designing, developing, and optimizing key modules of the high-performance platform.
• Symfony: Experience with this framework is essential for building and maintaining the large-scale backend systems.
• MySQL: Advanced knowledge is required for designing efficient data models, optimizing queries, and handling high-volume data processing.
• Apache Kafka: This technology is used for designing and maintaining asynchronous processing solutions and building reliable integrations.
• Docker: Familiarity with containerization is necessary for working within the CI/CD environment and deploying applications.
• OpenTelemetry: This is utilized for integrating telemetry into applications to enhance observability and distributed tracing.

Who this role suits

• A developer with a strong ownership mindset who thrives on tackling complex, high-load system challenges.
• Someone who enjoys contributing to architectural decisions and improving system modularity in a large enterprise environment.
• An engineer who values deep technical work in data optimization, event-driven systems, and robust observability practices.
• A collaborative individual who can mentor peers and uphold high engineering standards through code reviews and best practices.

From the employer

Core Platform Development

• Design, develop, and optimize key modules of a high-performance PHP platform.
• Ensure reliability, maintainability, and scalability of the codebase.
• Take technical ownership of critical business domains and services.

Architecture & System Design

• Participate in architectural decision-making for a large enterprise monolith.
• Design integration patterns with databases and external systems.
• Improve modularity and maintain clear boundaries between platform components.

Data Layer Optimization

• Design efficient data models and storage strategies.
• Optimize MySQL queries and ORM performance under heavy production workloads.
• Work with large datasets and contribute to analytical solutions using ClickHouse.

Event-Driven Architecture

• Design and maintain asynchronous processing solutions using Apache Kafka.
• Build reliable integrations between internal services and external systems.

Observability & Reliability

• Integrate telemetry into applications using OpenTelemetry-based solutions.
• Analyze application performance and identify bottlenecks.
• Troubleshoot and resolve production incidents.
• Contribute to monitoring, logging, and tracing practices.

Engineering Excellence

• Conduct meaningful code reviews and mentor fellow engineers.
• Promote high development standards and best practices.
• Collaborate closely with Product Managers, QA Engineers, DevOps, and other stakeholders.

• 5+ years of commercial PHP development experience.
• Strong knowledge of PHP 8.x and modern backend development practices.
• Deep understanding of OOP, SOLID principles, design patterns, and clean architecture.
• Experience building and maintaining large-scale backend systems.

Technical Skills

• Strong experience with Symfony and/or Laravel.
• Advanced knowledge of MySQL, including:
• Query optimization
• Indexing strategies
• Replication
• Locking mechanisms
• High-volume data processing
• Experience with Redis.
• Hands-on experience with Apache Kafka.
• Understanding of observability, logging, and application profiling.
• Familiarity with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience working in CI/CD environments.

Nice to Have

• Experience with ClickHouse at scale.
• Experience building analytics or data lake solutions.
• Experience refactoring large monolithic applications into modular domains.
• Knowledge of OpenTelemetry and distributed tracing.

Soft Skills

• Strong ownership mindset and accountability.
• Ability to work independently and make technical decisions.
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate with senior engineers and cross-functional teams.

• Opportunity to work on a high-load platform handling massive volumes of traffic and data.
• A team composed of senior-level engineers.
• High level of technical ownership and impact.
• Remote-first environment with flexibility across Europe.
• Hybrid and on-site opportunities in Prague, Czech Republic.
• Long-term collaboration on challenging engineering problems.

Benefits

• 20 vacation days and 5 family days yearly.
• Flexible start to the workday.
• Support from a professional corporate coach and psychologist.
• Regular internal and external activities, workshops, trips, and corporate events.
• Access to our internal knowledge base, meetups, and team-building activities.
• Ongoing training in new technologies and continuous professional development support.