Lead PHP Engineer - Data Products

Key Responsibilities

• Lead a cross-functional team spanning backend, frontend and analytics engineering disciplines, fostering collaboration across different technical domains 
• Monitor individual and team performance and promote accountability 
• Support hiring, onboarding and continuous development of engineers 
• Drive predictable Agile delivery and support effective planning 

• Support the transition toward microservices and event driven patterns 
• Participate in architecture reviews and cross team planning 
• Maintain clear architectural documentation and architectural decision records 
• Work closely with data platform lead to ensure data products and platform strategy is well aligned 

• Define, measure and report on platform performance KPIs 
• Guide teams in designing scalable, resilient backend systems and data pipelines 
• Support performance investigations and platform optimisation efforts 

• Define and champion consistent API design principles, including data contracts and schema governance where applicable 
• Oversee the governance of API changes, versioning and documentation quality 
• Ensure APIs are discoverable, well-structured and reliable 

• Establish and maintain a security-first culture across engineering teams 
• Lead threat modelling exercises and coordinate vulnerability remediation 

• Promote shared ownership of quality, encouraging teams to build robust automated testing 
• Ensure test coverage, test reliability and continuous improvement of testing practices 
• Champion data quality practices including data model testing, schema validation and observability of data products 

• Lead refactoring and modernisation initiatives 
• Prioritise and track improvements to system health 
• Promote best practices in performance tuning, code quality and maintainability 

• Participate in decisions on new frameworks, tooling and engineering approaches 
• Standardise tooling and processes across teams 
• Look for opportunities to improve development workflows and reduce friction 

• Define documentation guidelines and ensure they are followed 
• Implement structured incident reporting and post incident review processes 
• Promote clear, accessible documentation as part of engineering culture 

Skills, Knowledge and Experience Required:

• Proven experience in a technical leadership role working on large scale, business critical SaaS platforms 
• Proven experience leading cross-functional engineering teams spanning backend, frontend and analytics disciplines, with the depth to engage credibly across all three 
• Strong engineering background spanning backend systems, data modelling and tooling, and frontend development 
• Hands-on experience with PHP, SQL, and at least one other backend language 
• Solid understanding of system architecture, microservices, event driven systems and API design 
• Good knowledge of modern cloud environments, CI/CD practices and observability tools 
• Experience with performance tuning, debugging and scalability challenges 
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to build trust across teams 
• Practical leadership style focused on enabling engineers and removing blockers 
• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills 
• A proactive, improvement minded approach to engineering 

The Interview Process:

• Telephone interview with the Talent Acquisition Partner  
• Online technical interview with the Head of Engineering and an Engineering Lead