Team Lead PHP

About the Role We are looking for an experienced PHP Team Lead to join our engineering organization and lead a team of senior backend engineers building a high-load platform that processes tens of thousands of requests per second and terabytes of data daily. This role combines strong technical expertise with mature people leadership. You will be responsible for building and developing a high-performing engineering team, driving architectural decisions, improving development processes, and ensuring the reliability and scalability of complex backend systems. You will work closely with Product, DevOps, QA, and other engineering leaders to align technical strategy with business objectives while fostering a culture of ownership, autonomy, and engineering excellence. What You'll Do Team Leadership & Development Build, grow, and develop a team of Senior PHP Engineers. Participate in hiring and conduct in-depth technical and architectural interviews. Design effective onboarding programs for experienced engineers. Drive engagement, motivation, and long-term retention of key talent. Conduct regular 1-on-1 meetings, performance reviews, and career development discussions. Technical Leadership Facilitate architectural discussions and guide technical decision-making. Help senior engineers reach consensus on complex technical challenges. Promote a culture of engineering autonomy, accountability, and continuous improvement. Maintain high standards for code quality, software design, and engineering practices. Delivery & Engineering Processes Establish and optimize development processes using Agile methodologies (Scrum/Kanban). Support task decomposition, estimation, planning, and execution. Lead code reviews and ensure adherence to architectural and coding standards. Architecture & System Design Drive the design and evolution of scalable backend architectures built with PHP. Evaluate and introduce architectural patterns, frameworks, and integration approaches. Ensure long-term maintainability, reliability, and scalability of the platform. Data & High-Load Systems Oversee database design and optimization for high-throughput environments. Improve performance of MySQL-based systems handling thousands of queries per second. Design and support analytical integrations using ClickHouse. Event-Driven Architecture Design reliable asynchronous processing solutions using Apache Kafka. Lead the implementation of event-driven communication between services. Reliability & Incident Management Own service stability and production reliability. Drive monitoring and observability initiatives using Prometheus and Grafana. Lead incident response activities and coordinate root cause analysis. Establish post-mortem practices and continuous improvement processes. Cross-Functional Collaboration Partner with Product Owners, DevOps Engineers, QA teams, and other Team Leads. Align engineering priorities with business objectives and delivery goals. Ensure effective communication across technical and non-technical stakeholders. Leadership Experience 2+ years of experience as a Team Lead or Tech Lead managing PHP engineering teams. Proven experience hiring, mentoring, and leading Senior Engineers. Strong people management skills with a coaching and servant leadership mindset. Ability to build a peer-to-peer culture without micromanagement. Technical Background 6+ years of commercial PHP development experience. Expert knowledge of PHP 8.x and modern backend development practices. Deep understanding of OOP, SOLID principles, design patterns, and software architecture. Strong experience with Symfony and/or Laravel. Databases & Infrastructure Advanced knowledge of MySQL, including: Query optimization Indexing strategies Replication Performance tuning Concurrency and lock optimization Experience working with Redis. Experience with ClickHouse or other analytical databases. Event-Driven Systems Strong practical experience with Apache Kafka. Understanding of event-driven architectures and distributed systems. Infrastructure Knowledge Good understanding of: CI/CD pipelines Docker Kubernetes Linux environments Networking fundamentals Soft Skills Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills. Strong facilitation and conflict-resolution abilities. Experience conducting performance reviews and mentoring engineers. Ability to translate business goals into actionable engineering initiatives. Tech Stack PHP 8.x Symfony / Laravel MySQL Redis Apache Kafka ClickHouse Docker Kubernetes Prometheus Grafana 20 vacation days and 5 family days yearly Flexible start to the workday Support from a professional corporate coach and psychologist Regular internal and external activities, workshops, trips, and corporate events Access to our internal knowledge base, meetups, and team-building activities Ongoing training in new technologies and continuous professional development support