Hybrid Mid-Senior Software Engineer, PHP/Laravel

at Chuffed.org

• Job title: Mid-Senior Software Engineer, PHP/Laravel
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Senior
• Salary: A$140,000 per year
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Tech skills: AWS, Cypress, GraphQL, Jest, Laravel, MySQL, Next.js, PHP, React, Terraform
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Melbourne, Australia

About the role

• Mid-Senior Software Engineer helping build and scale Chuffed.org, a social justice crowdfunding platform. Focused on optimizing backend systems and delivering new functionality for campaigns.

Responsibilities

• Deliver backend support for product features, working pragmatically across the stack when needed
• Design and build scalable APIs and backend features within our existing architectural direction, with strong emphasis on performance, reliability, and maintainability
• Drive initiatives focused on security improvements, stability, and database/query optimisation
• Identify bottlenecks, technical debt, and production risks and execute pragmatic fixes
• Optimise MySQL databases to ensure high performance and reliability, including, indexing strategies, migrations, and complex queries
• Write documentation of features and concepts, and ensure existing documentation is kept up-to-date
• Use monitoring and logging tools to troubleshoot and resolve software issues, to ensure reliable application performance
• Collaborate with the customer support team to ensure common bugs or feature requests are prioritised or fixed

Requirements

• 4+ years experience as a Software Engineer, with strong knowledge of:
• PHP8 and Laravel 11+, including an understanding of modern PHP best practices
• Solid experience designing and working with relational databases (MySQL), including schema design and query optimisation
• Proven experience improving application security, reliability, and performance in production systems
• Experience writing automated tests (e.g. PHPUnit, Jest), and contributing to regression suites such as Cypress
• Good understanding of software design principles (SOLID, OOP, design patterns) and pragmatic tradeoffs in a fast-moving product team
• Comfortable with communicating technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
• A strong growth mindset - you’re not afraid to take risks, fail, and learn
• A passion for social justice and a strong desire to help Chuffed campaigners succeed
• Able to iterate quickly on product features, making pragmatic UX and UI decisions when design patterns aren’t fully defined
• Comfortable operating independently within defined technical boundaries
• Pragmatic decision-maker who understands when to escalate larger architectural concerns
• Strong executor who can take backend problems from identification through implementation without heavy oversight
• Bonus points if you have:
• Experience working on systems handling financial transactions or sensitive user data
• Demonstrated experience managing AWS services
• Proven experience working with GraphQL, in a backend and/or frontend environment
• Strong working knowledge of React and/or NextJS, and confidence building production-ready UI
• Experience working with IaC principles and tools, particularly Terraform

Benefits

• $140,000 salary + super
• We value work-life balance. We work autonomously from home and meet up with the team intermittently to collaborate in-person. We’re based in Sydney and Melbourne but open to remote employees within Australia
• Work alongside industry leading marketers and digital engineers in a small and agile team with deep industry connections
• Spend your days amplifying the work of campaigners pushing for progressive social change around the world