Backend Team Lead (PHP)

Job description

**This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Backend Team Lead (PHP) based in Germany.** This role offers the opportunity to build and lead an internal backend engineering team responsible for the long-term ownership of a high-performance platform. You will combine hands-on technical leadership with team building, mentoring, architecture, and delivery ownership. A major focus will be leading the migration from a legacy environment toward a modern, scalable, and internally managed architecture. You will work closely with software architecture and engineering leadership to translate technical strategy into reliable production systems. The role requires deep expertise in PHP and Laravel, alongside strong knowledge of databases, APIs, infrastructure, distributed systems, and observability. You will play a critical role in ensuring high availability, security, resilience, and performance across global gaming systems. This is an ideal opportunity for a pragmatic player-coach who enjoys solving complex engineering challenges while building a strong team from the ground up. ### 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.