Lead PHP Engineer

Zeeks is a technology company that develops infrastructure, analytics, and service products for the global iGaming industry. We operate across B2B and B2B2C business models, grow our own product portfolio for international markets, and build products where data quality, operational efficiency, and scalability form the foundation of every solution.

We are looking for a Lead PHP Engineer who will become one of the key engineers in our product team and take ownership of backend solutions that ensure the stability, performance, and scalability of our products. This is a role with a high level of autonomy and influence on technical decisions, where you will not only write high-quality code but also contribute to architecture development, engineering practices, and team growth.

What we’re looking for:

• 6+ years of commercial backend development experience with PHP.
• Strong hands-on experience with Laravel, including service layer, queues, jobs, events, caching, authorization, and testing.
• Experience designing and maintaining REST and GraphQL APIs.
• Practical experience with MySQL or PostgreSQL, including query optimization and database performance tuning.
• Experience working with Redis, caching, queues, and asynchronous data processing.
• Experience with RabbitMQ, Kafka, or similar message brokers.
• Strong proficiency with Git, Docker, and CI/CD.
• Solid understanding of secure software development principles (OWASP, OAuth2, JWT, CSRF, XSS).
• Ability to write clean, testable, and maintainable code following SOLID principles, Clean Code practices, and PSR standards.
• Experience participating in code reviews, technical discussions, and engineering decision-making.
• English proficiency at B1 level or higher.

Nice to have:

• Experience with high-load or high-traffic systems.
• Experience with WordPress, Statamic, or other CMS/headless CMS platforms in the context of custom development, integrations, and performance optimization.
• Experience modernizing legacy systems, refactoring, or conducting technical audits.
• Experience with AWS, GCP, Cloudflare, or other cloud/CDN services.

In this role, you will:

• Design, develop, and evolve backend solutions for the Zeeks product ecosystem.
• Participate in architectural decision-making, including service architecture, API contracts, integration approaches, scalability, and reliability.
• Develop and maintain REST and GraphQL APIs for internal and external services.
• Work with caching, queues, asynchronous processes, and third-party service integrations.
• Optimize application performance, database performance, and critical business workflows.
• Maintain engineering standards, including code reviews, test coverage, security, technical documentation, and architectural quality.
• Support the team with technical analysis, decomposition of complex tasks, and selection of optimal engineering solutions.
• Contribute to the gradual modernization of existing products and improvements to the developer experience.

What we offer:

• The opportunity to influence product architecture, engineering practices, and key technical decisions across the company.
• A high level of autonomy in decision-making, strong team support, and access to the resources needed to bring your ideas to life.
• The opportunity to work on proprietary products built for international markets, with a long-term product roadmap.
• A clear path toward Engineering Leadership, with opportunities to expand your technical influence and ownership.
• Competitive compensation fixed in a foreign currency, with regular performance-based salary reviews.
• 18 paid working days off, plus an additional 5 days-off, Birthday-off, and 5 sick leaves (without medical certificates).
• Annual budget for education and professional development.
• Annual wellbeing deposit covering compensation for medical services, sports activities, veterinary services, foreign language learning, non-core education and hobbies, as well as childcare services (nanny/kindergarten).