PHP Developer / Software Engineer

Location – United States, Madison, WI

This is a fast-paced, high-visibility engineering role within SIE’s Martech Engineering team, focused on building and scaling the Bridges application - a highly available, fault-tolerant, and globally distributed platform. As a PHP Developer on the Bridges team, you will be responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining robust web applications using the Laravel framework. You will write clean, efficient, and well-documented code with a strong emphasis on performance, scalability, and reliability. This role requires solid problem-solving skills and a deep understanding of modern web development best practices.

You will collaborate closely with architects, engineers, QA, and DevOps teams to enhance and support the Bridges platform. The role involves delivering high-quality solutions on time, proactively identifying and escalating issues, and contributing to continuous improvement efforts. In addition to hands-on development, you will play an active role in code reviews, technical discussions, and knowledge sharing through documentation and workshops.

Job Responsibilities

• Work closely with the Engineering Manager, Tech Lead, QA Engineer, and Product Manager to help solutionize feature requests
• Building and improving backend services using PHP/Laravel.
• Demonstrate expertise in producing well-architected, efficient, and scalable code using industry-leading design patterns and methodologies.
• Ensuring high code quality through TDD, functional testing, and documentation.
• Participating in architecture discussions and teamwide decision making.
• Contributing to frontend tasks when needed.
• Write clean, maintainable, and well-structured code that adheres to project coding standards.
• Optimize code and configurations for improved system efficiency.
• Create technical documentation, including design documents, code documentation, and best practice guides.
• Provide training and knowledge transfer to junior developers and team members.
• Contribute to strategic planning meetings and provide guidance and expertise on system options, risks, and impacts.

Required Qualifications, Capabilities, And Skills

• 6 - 8 years of professional experience with PHP & Laravel, plus strong knowledge of SOLID/DRY principles.
• Experience working in a stakeholder led environment with strong communication skills.
• Build and consume REST and SOAP APIs to support system integrations.
• 6+ years of hands-on experience designing, developing, and maintaining desktop, mobile, and responsive web applications using Laravel, Node.js, and React frameworks, deployed in AWS.
• Refactor and optimize legacy PHP code while supporting platform stability.
• Solid understanding of Git workflows (branching, pull requests, code reviews) and ability to manage clean commits without debug/unnecessary code.
• Strong understanding of database design, indexing, and performance optimization.
• Practical experience operating AWS production workloads (e.g., EC2, S3, IAM, CloudWatch, EKS, SQS).
• Experience with unit testing, TDD, and functional testing.
• Comfortable working with additional languages or lowerlevel tooling when needed (e.g., Bash, Python).
• Strong SQL skills with MySQL or PostgreSQL
• Comfortable working in fast-paced, cross-functional teams alongside product managers, designers, and other engineers.
• Demonstrated ability to manage time effectively and deliver quality work within agreed timelines.

Preferred Qualifications, Capabilities, And Skills

• Experience with CI/CD pipelines
• Familiarity with AWS or other cloud environments.
• Strong problem-solving and communication skills.
• Web application development experience, including React, NextJS, NodeJS
• Passionate about gaming and video game culture