Lead Software Engineer

Job Role:Principal PHP Software Engineer Reference:BH-357p Job Type:Permanent Location:Fully Remote with in-person meetups every 2 months Salary:up to £100,000k per annumAbout The Client: Our client is a fast-growing HealthTech company rethinking pharmacy workflows. They replace outdated systems with smart hardware and provide full onboarding and training. Their platform powers operations, integrates with NHS services, and supports robotics.Theyre hiring a Principal PHP Software Engineer to lead engineering, drive improvements, and mentor the team.Overview: Our client is looking for a Principal PHPSoftware Engineer to take a leading role in their engineering team. Youll be hands-on with their Laravel-based backend, while also guiding architectural decisions, mentoring engineers, and driving technical excellence. Youll collaborate closely with company directors (technical and non-technical), support staff, and key partners like NHS England and NHS Digital to deliver mission-critical features, integrate with complex healthcare protocols, and help mature the companys engineering practices. Beyond development, youll play a vital leadership role, supporting junior team members, championing testing and automation, and introducing robust DevOps and CI/CD processes.Key Responsibilities: Lead backend development in our Laravel PHP monolith, owning major projects end-to-end. Upgrade and modernise somewhat out of date PHP framework codebases, Introducing best practices and modern tooling. Mentor and coach junior developers, helping grow the team. Advocate for and embed automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, code quality, and robust review processes. Work closely with the leadership team to report monthly technical progress, including involvement in NHS stakeholder meetings and cross-functional updates. Collaborate with support and installation teams to ensure smooth customer onboarding and operational stability. Take ownership of platform stability, patching processes, and software security. Design and optimise MySQL (RDS) databases for performance and scale, particularly for data retention and audit logging. MSSQL is involved, and is desirable as they have a small amount of this in play for customer reasons. Help drive DevOps maturity: automate deployments, and monitor systems. Collaborate with stakeholders to influence product direction and operational strategies.Company Tech Stack: Backend: PHP(Laravel) APIs (OAuth) WebSockets Node.js (used in Electron apps)Frontend: PHP server-side rendering (Laravel Blade), Vue.js, Bootstrap, JavaScriptDatabases: MySQL (RDS), MSSQL Redis (ElasticCache) Heavy data compliance: audit logging, long-term data retentionInfrastructure & DevOps: AWS (EC2, RDS, S3, WAF, ELB, Lambda, CloudFront, SNS, CloudWatch) Manual deployments (in transition to CI/CD) OpenVPN, DirectConnect, VPC routing (split/full tunnel VPNs)Desktop Apps: Electron (Node.js backend + Vue.js frontend)Requirements/experience: 7+ years of PHP experience, with Laravel knowledge Leadership mindset: ability to mentor others, shape processes, and push back when needed Hands-on, sleeves-rolled-up problem solver who enjoys digging into systems and improving them Experience upgrading codebases and introducing modern PHP/Laravel practices Strong database skills: query optimisation, data modelling, large-scale architecture Proven experience embedding automated testing and QA processes in teams Comfortable with DevOps, AWS services, and basic networking (DNS, DHCP, VPN, routing) Strong communicator who can represent the company in external stakeholder meetingsAdditional/Desirable experience: NHS integration protocols: FHIR, HL7, CIS2, EPS, RTEC, PDS, DOS, DM+D Familiarity with integrating or communicating with robotic automation systems and integrating with physical devices Desktop app development with Electron CI/CD setup, rollback strategies, and deployment automation Sentry, NewRelic, or other observability tooling implementationTPBN1_UKTJ