Team Lead PHP Developer | Edlight

We’re looking for a Team Lead PHP Developer to join Edlight — a business that builds AI products and expert services for students and professionals.

What you’ll be focusing on:

• Lead the backend direction of the product from architecture to release — 80%+ of your time.
• Manage two Backend Developers, including 1:1 meetings, feedback, and development plans — up to 20% of your time.
• Maintain the team’s code quality through code reviews and technical standards.
• Decompose, estimate, and plan the team’s tasks.
• Coordinate with Frontend and QA teams across integration points.
• Manage technical debt and risks.
• Monitor team metrics.
• Participate in hiring Backend Developers.

You are our ideal candidate if you:

• Have strong PHP 8+ and Symfony 6+ expertise with 5+ years of experience.
• Write clean code following SOLID, KISS, and DRY principles and are confident refactoring existing functionality.
• Have strong MySQL expertise and can independently identify bottlenecks, including query optimization, indexing, and execution plan analysis.
• Have experience designing project architecture according to business requirements.
• Have experience collaborating cross-functionally with Frontend and QA teams.
• Have hands-on experience with RabbitMQ / Symfony Messenger / Redis / Memcached.
• Use AI tools (Claude / Cursor / Copilot) as part of your daily workflow rather than as an experiment.
• Have experience managing, mentoring, or training colleagues and conducting code reviews.

Nice to have:

• Experience with GraphQL (Overblog GraphQL Bundle).
• Experience with WebSocket (Centrifugo).
• Experience with AWS.
• Experience with Python (FastAPI).
• Experience hiring engineers and conducting technical interviews.

Our hiring flow:

• Step 1: Pre-screen.
• Step 2: Тechnical interview.
• Step 3: Final Interview.
• Step 4: Reference check.
• Step 5: Job Offer!

What you can expect from working with us:

• Strong team and growth environment
• Work alongside experienced and motivated professionals. This enables rapid professional growth and high performance.
• Remote work & flexible schedule
• You can start your workday anytime between 8:00 AM and 11:00 AM (Kyiv time) and finish between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM, considering team collaboration hours. You’re also welcome to visit our office in Kyiv or coworking spaces in Lviv and Warsaw.
• Time to recharge
• 28 working days of paid vacation per year, 30 sick leave days, and all public holidays observed. You can also arrange a workday transfer — swapping a working day with a day off and vice versa.
• Health & well-being support
• For the team in Ukraine — medical insurance, compensation for sports activities, books, and therapy sessions. We care about physical and mental well-being because we play the long game.
• Learning & development
• Compensation for courses and conferences, leadership training, internal lectures, English lessons, and speaking clubs.
• Team time
• Quarterly online or offline team-building events. We know how to not only work together but also connect beyond daily tasks.
• Social Impac
• The Ukrainian Victory Support program and other charitable initiatives aimed at supporting Ukraine.

If you’re looking for an environment where ideas are born through collaboration and results truly matter — we should definitely connect.