PHP Developer – Backend Web Applications

About the role

We are looking for a skilled PHP Developer to join our Revenue Systems team in Cape Town. You will develop, maintain, and enhance robust web applications, focusing on backend performance, security, and scalability.

Key responsibilities

• Take ownership of a PHP‑based platform, becoming the internal technical expert and leading knowledge transfer.
• Maintain platform stability, security, and performance through incident management, monitoring, and continuous optimisation.
• Manage system updates, dependencies, and security vulnerabilities.
• Design, develop, and deliver new features in collaboration with Product and Delivery teams.
• Translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions and contribute to planning and estimation.
• Design and optimise MySQL/PostgreSQL databases, ensuring data integrity and performance.
• Build and maintain secure RESTful API integrations with internal and third‑party systems.
• Promote best engineering practices such as testing, documentation, version control, and CI/CD.
• Support the growth of the engineering team through knowledge sharing and onboarding.

Required profile

• 5+ years of commercial PHP development experience delivering scalable production systems.
• Strong experience with PHP frameworks (Laravel or Symfony) and ability to work with modern and legacy codebases.
• Solid knowledge of relational databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and ORM usage.
• Experience building secure RESTful APIs and implementing authentication methods (OAuth2, API keys, JWT).
• Proficiency with Git, pull‑request workflows, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Comfortable working in Agile/Scrum environments.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, IT, Software Engineering or equivalent practical experience.

Required skills

• PHP (8.0 or later)
• Laravel
• Symfony
• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• Eloquent ORM
• Doctrine ORM
• RESTful API development
• OAuth2
• API keys
• JWT
• Git
• CI/CD pipelines
• Agile/Scrum