Backend Team Lead (PHP)

Accountabilities

• Build and lead the internal Backend Engineering team from the ground up, establishing the capabilities required for full platform migration and long-term ownership.
• Recruit, mentor, develop, and retain high-caliber backend engineers while establishing strong standards for delivery, clean code, testing, and engineering excellence.
• Take technical ownership of the PHP backend and ensure the platform remains stable, secure, scalable, and highly performant throughout the migration.
• Partner with the Software Architect to translate the long-term technical vision into a scalable architecture that can be managed and evolved internally.
• Lead the transition from legacy systems and environments to a modern, high-performance internal architecture while identifying and mitigating technical and operational risks.
• Own backend delivery against the technical roadmap, ensuring priorities are clearly defined, progress is maintained, and key initiatives are delivered effectively.
• Ensure global gaming systems meet demanding requirements for availability, resilience, fault tolerance, and operational stability.
• Remain hands-on in the codebase and lead by example through technical decision-making, implementation, code quality, and problem-solving.
• Drive the adoption of rigorous testing, continuous integration, continuous delivery, and modern engineering practices across the backend team.
• Collaborate with engineering leadership and other technical stakeholders to navigate complex architectural transitions and resolve high-impact technical challenges.
• Apply modern artificial intelligence tools effectively throughout engineering workflows to improve development speed, quality, and problem-solving.

Requirements

• Extensive experience as a Senior Engineer, Lead Engineer, or equivalent technical leader, with a proven ability to build and scale high-performance engineering teams.
• Professional background in iGaming, sportsbook, fintech, or similarly high-performance and high-availability technology environments.
• Expert-level knowledge of PHP and Laravel, including extensive experience refactoring complex backend systems for scalability, maintainability, and performance.
• Proven experience managing high-stakes technical migrations between systems or environments, with a strong understanding of risk mitigation and business continuity.
• Deep knowledge of relational databases such as PostgreSQL and MySQL, as well as Redis and other technologies used to support high-performance applications.
• Strong experience designing and developing scalable REST and GraphQL APIs.
• Solid understanding of modern infrastructure and deployment practices, including Docker, Kubernetes, and automated CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience with event-driven architectures and messaging technologies such as Kafka and RabbitMQ.
• Knowledge of observability and monitoring platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana, or Datadog.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, backend scalability, system reliability, and fault-tolerant design.
• Pragmatic, hands-on leadership style with a willingness to remain technically involved and lead through example.
• Excellent English communication skills, with the ability to communicate complex technical concepts effectively with engineers, architects, and senior leadership.
• Strong problem-solving, decision-making, and organizational skills, particularly within complex migration and transformation environments.
• Excellent ability to use artificial intelligence tools as part of modern software engineering workflows.
• Familiarity with AWS or Google Cloud Platform is an advantage.
• Knowledge of security best practices for high-volume financial transactions is a plus.
• Knowledge of Golang is considered an additional advantage.

Benefits

• Full-time contract opportunity within a growing technology environment.
• Opportunity to build and lead a backend engineering team from the ground up.
• Significant ownership over the technical direction, migration strategy, architecture, and long-term evolution of the platform.
• Opportunity to work on a B2B technology platform launched in 2025 and contribute to its growth and scalability.
• Truly international working environment with colleagues and stakeholders across different countries.
• Fully distributed working model with the flexibility associated with a global remote team.
• Up to 28 unavailable days per year in addition to public holidays.
• Opportunity to work with modern technologies including PHP, Laravel, Kubernetes, Docker, Kafka, RabbitMQ, Redis, and cloud infrastructure.
• Exposure to complex high-performance systems within the gaming and technology ecosystem.
• Opportunity to develop leadership capabilities while remaining closely connected to hands-on engineering.
• Fast-moving environment offering substantial responsibility and the opportunity to make a direct impact on platform architecture and engineering culture.