Lead PHP Engineer (Principal level)

About SwissDevs SwissDevs is a software development company based in Egypt, building and running production systems. We combine Swiss standards for reliability, documentation and on-time delivery with a strong engineering team. Our engineers work directly with client stakeholders, own what they ship, and are trusted to make technical decisions, not just close tickets.

The role We're looking for a Lead PHP Engineer to be the technical authority for our PHP practice. You'll own the architecture of several client platforms, many of them long-lived systems that need careful modernization rather than rewrites. You'll decide how they evolve, lead the engineers who build them, and be the person clients and our leadership turn to when a trade-off needs explaining.

This is a hands-on role: expect to spend roughly half your time designing and writing code, and the other half reviewing, mentoring, and shaping how the team works.

What you'll do

• Own architecture across client platforms. Design and evolve scalable, secure systems and APIs in PHP 8.2+, primarily Laravel and Symfony. Choose between a modular monolith and services based on the client's real constraints, and write down why.
• Modernize legacy systems safely. Lead incremental migrations, for example legacy CakePHP or older Symfony applications toward modern Laravel or Symfony, using strangler-pattern approaches, feature flags and solid test coverage so clients never feel a "big bang".
• Fix the hard performance problems. Profile and resolve slow queries, N+1 issues, missing indexes, memory leaks, queue backlogs and high-concurrency bottlenecks, using tools like Blackfire, Xdebug, Laravel Telescope/Pulse and database query plans.
• Raise the bar for the team. Lead code reviews, mentor mid-level and senior engineers, and set our standards for design (SOLID, DDD where it pays off), testing (PHPUnit, Pest) and static analysis (PHPStan, Psalm).
• Run reliable delivery pipelines. Own CI/CD in GitHub Actions or GitLab CI, containerized environments with Docker, and deployments on AWS (and GCP where clients require it).
• Design the data and async layer. Model schemas in MySQL and PostgreSQL, and design caching (Redis, Memcached) and background processing (Laravel Queues/Horizon, Symfony Messenger, RabbitMQ).
• Keep systems secure. Apply OWASP Top 10 practices, OAuth2/JWT authentication, encryption at rest and in transit, and review third-party integrations. Help clients meet data-protection expectations such as GDPR and Swiss FADP.
• Translate between business and engineering. Work with client product owners, our project managers, DevOps and frontend teams to turn business goals into realistic technical roadmaps and estimates.

What you bring

• 8–10+ years building production web applications, with most of that time in the PHP ecosystem.
• Deep, hands-on expertise in Laravel and Symfony, including their ORMs (Eloquent, Doctrine), and comfort working in legacy codebases.
• Strong modern PHP (8.x): typed properties, enums, readonly classes, attributes, and the OOP and design-pattern knowledge to use them well.
• Advanced MySQL and/or PostgreSQL skills: schema design, indexing, query optimization, and reading execution plans.
• Experience designing, versioning and securing REST APIs; GraphQL experience is a plus.
• Solid Docker, Git, Linux and CI/CD skills, and experience deploying to AWS.
• A track record of leading engineers or technical initiatives: reviewing code, mentoring, and driving decisions to completion.
• Clear written and spoken English. You can explain an architectural trade-off to a CTO and to a non-technical client in the same day.
• Pragmatism: you know when clean architecture matters and when shipping is the priority.

Nice to have

• Production experience with CakePHP, or having led a CakePHP migration.
• Kubernetes, Terraform or other infrastructure-as-code tools.
• High-performance PHP runtimes (Laravel Octane, Swoole, RoadRunner, FrankenPHP).
• BDD tools such as Behat; event-driven or DDD-heavy systems.
• Experience working with Swiss or DACH clients; German is a bonus but not required.
• Familiarity with a second backend stack (e.g. Python, Node.js).