A rapidly growing organization is seeking a high-level Senior System Architect / Senior PHP Developer to guide modernization of a large legacy platform, mentor a young development team, and shape the technical foundation for the companys next phase of growthincluding upcoming AI-driven initiatives.
The organization operates in a collaborative, flat leadership environment where developers work closely with founders and cross-functional leaders. This role requires someone who is opinionated yet pragmaticsomeone who can make strong technical decisions, communicate the why, and build alignment across teams.
About the Team & Culture
- Highly collaborative development team with open communication, active coaching, and shared ownership.
- Leadership is accessible, non-hierarchical, and moves quickly.
- Strong emphasis on mentorship, humility, servant leadership, and practical innovation.
- Developers work hands-on with product, leadership, and operations teams to support rapid business growth.
- The environment is sales-led and fast-paced, requiring autonomy, accountability, and a balance of innovation + business awareness.
- All software development is done internallyno outsourcingso this role provides direct impact on product direction and quality.
Primary Responsibilities
Architecture & System Design
Define system architecture patterns, code structure, and engineering standards.Lead modernization of a legacy PHP codebase into modular, scalable, and maintainable architecture.Collaborate with system leads to document and guide best practices across the platform.Understand and balance technical debt, scalability needs, and business-driven priorities.Cloud Infrastructure & DevOps
Own AWS architecture, hosting, security, and environment management.Manage CI / CD pipelines, deployments, and infrastructure tooling (e.g., Jenkins, Docker).Ensure reliability, performance, and efficient deployments across environments.Technical Leadership & Mentorship
Act as a mentor for a young development team.Provide code guidance, coaching, and architectural reasoning to help engineers grow.Transfer knowledge formerly held by the prior architect and maintain continuity of system understanding.Support QA teams by sharing context and collaborating on quality improvements.Cross-Functional Collaboration
Communicate technical decisions to non-technical leadership with clarity and rationale.Contribute to prioritizing technical debt, stabilization tasks, and roadmap initiatives.Work closely with founders, product leadership, and operational teams.Help sell architectural and modernization strategies internally to ensure alignment.Required Skills & Experience
10+ years of experience building large-scale web applications (flexible for exceptional candidates with strong PHP modernization experience).Deep experience with PHP, large active codebases, and legacy system modernization.Strong full-stack expertise across PHP, SQL, and JavaScript frameworks (Vue preferred).Proven AWS experience (hosting, storage, Lambdas, security, automation).Solid DevOps background with CI / CD pipelines and containerization (Jenkins, Docker, etc.).Strong architectural mindset : understands both the technical and business implications of decisions.Comfortable in fast-paced environments with shifting priorities.Experience building consensus, justifying technical choices, and aligning teams.Passion for mentorship, coaching, and elevating overall team capability.Interest in AI-related initiatives and how they impact architecture and product evolution.Preferred Traits
Opinionated but pragmaticable to justify decisions and adapt when needed.Excited by system redesign, modernization, and scaling architecture.Comfortable working directly with founders and senior leadership.Low ego, collaborative, and committed to knowledge sharing.Energized by building internal tools with real-world business use cases.Open to AI innovation and creatively exploring new technologies.