Backend Engineer — PHP / CodeIgniter

About the Role

We are looking for a Mid–Senior Backend Engineer with strong PHP experience to develop, maintain, and improve backend services, APIs, and production-critical systems.

CodeIgniter is our primary production framework — including legacy versions — and will be the core of your day-to-day work. Some projects may involve Laravel, so familiarity with the framework at a comfortable level would be valuable. You will work hands-on across established production environments, contributing to API development, performance improvements, debugging, reliability, and technical modernization.

This is a full-stack-leaning role: approximately 80% of the work is back-end and full-stack development, with about 20% involving front-end responsibilities. The ideal candidate has solid foundational front-end experience with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap, and Vue.js, and is comfortable stepping into front-end work when needed — particularly across back-office applications, CRUD systems, internal dashboards, administrative interfaces, and other business-facing tools — without needing to be a dedicated front-end specialist.

The position also includes backup support responsibilities for core backend systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop, maintain, and improve backend services and REST APIs.
• Work confidently within existing and legacy PHP codebases, including maintaining, extending, and refactoring functionality.
• Design, build, and integrate internal and external APIs.
• Investigate, debug, and resolve production issues.
• Profile applications and improve backend performance, reliability, and scalability.
• Improve test coverage and system reliability, especially around business-critical workflows.
• Work day to day with relational databases, caching layers, and queue-based systems.
• Provide backup support for core backend systems when required.
• Participate in code reviews and contribute to engineering best practices.
• Document technical decisions, share knowledge, and collaborate closely with a small technical team.
• Use AI coding agents and modern development tools responsibly as part of the development workflow.
• Step into front-end work when needed, maintaining, troubleshooting, and enhancing both modern and legacy front-end code across back-office applications, CRUD systems, internal dashboards, and administrative interfaces.

Required Skills and Experience

• 5+ years of professional backend development experience with PHP.
• Strong hands-on experience with CodeIgniter, including legacy and older production versions — our primary and most important framework.
• Familiarity with Laravel at a comfortable level is valuable, as some projects may involve working within it.
• Solid understanding of REST API design, implementation, and integration.
• Good working knowledge of MySQL, including schema design, query optimization, and performance troubleshooting.
• Experience with Redis for caching, queues, or related backend use cases.
• Solid foundational front-end experience with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap, and Vue.js.
• Familiarity with legacy jQuery, as some existing systems still rely on it.
• Comfortable owning production systems, including debugging, profiling, incident investigation, and safe incremental refactoring.
• Experience using Git-based workflows.
• Exposure to AWS infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines.

Technical Stack

Preferred Qualifications

Beneficial but not required:

• Experience modernizing, migrating, or refactoring legacy systems.
• Experience introducing automated tests into previously untested codebases.
• Experience with Elasticsearch tuning, message queues, BigQuery, or ETL workflows.
• Previous experience in the travel or travel-tech industry.

Candidate Profile

We are looking for someone who is:

• Pragmatic and delivery-focused, with a strong ability to ship safe, incremental improvements.
• Highly reliable and comfortable taking ownership of production-critical backend systems.
• Confident working with legacy code, ambiguity, and evolving technical environments.
• Focused on improving systems rather than rewriting them unnecessarily.
• A clear communicator who collaborates well in a small team environment.
• Quality-minded, with an interest in improving tests, observability, documentation, and engineering practices.
• Curious about modern development workflows, including responsible use of AI coding tools.
• Comfortable stepping into front-end work when needed, without needing to be a dedicated front-end specialist.

What Success Looks Like

In this role, success means becoming a trusted owner of important backend systems, delivering reliable improvements to existing services, contributing to API and infrastructure stability, and helping the team modernize systems in a practical and sustainable way.

You will be expected to balance delivery speed with production safety, communicate clearly, and make thoughtful technical decisions that improve reliability, maintainability, and long-term system health.