Team Lead/Senior PHP Developer
Edlight is looking for a Team Lead/Senior PHP Developer to join their business, which builds AI products and expert services for students and professionals.
The role involves leading the backend direction of the product from architecture to production release. The successful candidate will manage a team of two Backend Developers, including 1:1 meetings, feedback, and development plans. Maintaining code quality through code reviews and technical standards is crucial, as is decomposing, estimating, and planning tasks while helping to unblock the team. Coordination with Frontend and QA teams across integration points and managing technical debt while balancing delivery speed are also key aspects of this position. Participation in hiring Backend Developers is also expected.
- Lead the backend direction of the product from architecture to production release.
- Manage a team of two Backend Developers, including 1:1 meetings, feedback, and development plans.
- Maintain code quality through code reviews and technical standards.
- Decompose, estimate, and plan tasks while helping unblock the team.
- Coordinate with Frontend and QA teams across integration points.
- Manage technical debt while balancing delivery speed.
- Participate in hiring Backend Developers.
- Strong PHP 8+ and Symfony 6+ experience (3+ years) (required).
- Ability to write clean code following SOLID, KISS, and DRY principles, and confidence in refactoring existing codebases (required).
- Strong MySQL expertise, including query optimisation, indexing, and execution plan analysis (required).
- Demonstrated architectural thinking at the service and API boundary level, making informed technical trade-offs (required).
- Cross-stack understanding and the ability to anticipate how backend decisions impact Frontend and QA (required).
- Proficiency in using AI development tools (Claude, Cursor, Copilot, or similar) as an integral part of the daily workflow (required).
- Experience with GraphQL (Overblog GraphQL Bundle) (nice-to-have).
- Experience with RabbitMQ and Symfony Messenger (nice-to-have).
- Experience with AWS S3, Redis or Memcached, and WebSocket technologies (Centrifugo) (nice-to-have).
- Experience with or genuine interest in Python (FastAPI) (nice-to-have).
- Experience hiring engineers and conducting technical interviews (nice-to-have).
- Remote work and flexible schedule with start times between 8:00 AM and 11:00 AM Kyiv time, finishing between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM.
- Option to visit the office in Kyiv or coworking spaces in Lviv and Warsaw.
- 28 working days of paid vacation per year.
- 30 sick leave days.
- All public holidays observed.
- Ability to arrange a workday transfer, swapping a working day with a day off and vice versa.
- For the team in Ukraine: medical insurance, compensation for sports activities, books, and therapy sessions.
- Compensation for courses and conferences, leadership training, internal lectures, English lessons, and speaking clubs.
- Quarterly online or offline team-building events.
- Participation in the Ukrainian Victory Support program and other charitable initiatives aimed at supporting Ukraine.
Boosta is an international IT company that develops and promotes SEO tools, digital products and educational products, primarily for Western markets. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Kyiv, Ukraine, it has released more than 10 products used by tens of thousands of people across Europe, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The company employs a team of over 400 specialists and runs an R&D department that backs startups and develops new products. Boosta operates across several verticals, including the iGaming affiliate space.