Senior PHP Developer For Gaming Website & Technical Operations Specialist

We are looking for a highly skilled PHP Developer to help maintain, improve, and scale an established web platform with a large user database and active production environment.

This is not a junior role.

We are looking for someone who is comfortable working inside a mature codebase, understanding existing architecture, making improvements without introducing regressions, and helping establish proper development workflows and operational processes.

The ideal candidate is equally comfortable writing code, managing databases, configuring environments, troubleshooting production issues, and working independently to solve technical challenges.

What You'll Be Working On

- Maintaining and improving an existing PHP web application
- Enhancing performance, stability, and scalability
- Fixing bugs and implementing new features
- Modernizing legacy systems where appropriate
- Managing development, staging, and production environments
- Assisting with third-party integrations and platform setup
- Working with large databases and user data
- Improving documentation and deployment processes

Core Responsibilities

PHP Development

- Develop and maintain PHP applications
- Debug and resolve production issues
- Improve existing functionality without disrupting live users
- Review code for security, performance, and maintainability
- Refactor legacy code where appropriate
- Implement new features and enhancements

Git & Development Workflow

- Establish and maintain proper Git workflows
- Setup and manage Development, Staging, and Production branches
- Create deployment procedures and release processes
- Perform code reviews and quality assurance testing
- Ensure safe deployment practices

Database Management

- Work with large MySQL / MariaDB databases
- Manage database imports, exports, backups, and migrations
- Optimize database performance
- Troubleshoot data-related issues
- Work comfortably within phpMyAdmin and direct SQL environments
- Maintain data integrity and security

Infrastructure & Operations

- Configure and manage development environments
- Assist with Linux server administration
- Troubleshoot hosting and deployment issues
- Monitor application performance
- Manage SSL certificates, DNS, email systems, and web hosting configurations
- Work with Apache, Nginx, or similar web servers

Integrations & Platform Setup

- Configure OAuth integrations (Google, Microsoft, ---------- , etc.)
- Setup APIs and third-party services
- Troubleshoot authentication systems
- Configure webhooks and external integrations
- Work with Stripe, payment gateways, email providers, analytics platforms, and SaaS tools

Technical Project Management

- Document technical processes
- Create implementation plans
- Identify technical debt and propose improvements
- Work independently with minimal supervision
- Recommend best practices and system improvements

Required Skills

- Advanced PHP experience
- MySQL / MariaDB experience
- GitHub experience
- Experience using professional IDEs (PhpStorm preferred)
- Strong debugging and troubleshooting abilities
- Understanding of software architecture and application design
- Experience working on existing production applications
- Strong understanding of web security best practices
- Experience with Linux hosting environments
- Experience with APIs and third-party integrations
- Ability to work independently and make sound technical decisions

Preferred Qualifications

- Laravel experience
- Composer experience
- Apache and Nginx administration
- OAuth implementation experience
- Stripe integration experience
- Experience managing large user databases
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines
- JavaScript experience
- HTML and CSS proficiency
- Docker experience
- Redis experience
- Cloud hosting experience (AWS, DigitalOcean, OVH, Vultr, etc.)

What We're Looking For

We are not looking for a developer who only wants to build new features.

We are looking for someone who can take ownership of a platform, understand existing systems, identify risks before changes are deployed, and make thoughtful improvements without breaking production.

The ideal candidate is comfortable jumping between development, database administration, server management, integrations, troubleshooting, and technical planning.

You should be the type of person who can:

- Safely upgrade an existing platform
- Setup proper development workflows
- Manage large databases
- Configure OAuth providers
- Debug difficult production issues
- Work independently without constant oversight
- Think critically about long-term scalability and maintainability

Screening Questions

- How many years of PHP experience do you have?
- Describe the largest PHP application you have worked on.
- What IDE do you use and why?
- Explain your preferred Git workflow for Development, Staging, and Production environments.
- Have you worked with databases containing more than 100,000 users? Please describe your experience.
- Describe a situation where you inherited a legacy PHP application. How did you approach understanding and improving it?
- Have you implemented OAuth integrations before? Which providers?
- How comfortable are you working directly with MySQL, MariaDB, SQL queries, backups, imports, exports, and phpMyAdmin?
- Describe a production outage or major issue you resolved.
- Please provide links to your GitHub profile, portfolio, LinkedIn, or examples of previous work.

Important

To confirm you have read this entire job posting, begin your application with the phrase:

"Legacy Systems First"

Applications that do not include this phrase may not be considered.