Senior Software Engineer (PHP)

About the Position

At Life is Hard, we build our own software products that help digitize the insurance ecosystem in Romania. Our solutions are used every day by insurance brokers and other market participants to simplify operations, improve efficiency, and deliver better customer experiences.

We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer (PHP) who enjoys solving complex technical problems, improving existing systems, and shaping how software products evolve from a technical perspective. This is a hands-on engineering role with impact beyond writing code. You'll contribute to product decisions with technical insights, help evolve our software architecture, and raise engineering standards across the team. You'll work on established, business-critical products where scalability, maintainability, and reliability matter, while helping us progressively modernize the technology behind them.

Responsibilities

• Product Development Contribution

  • Actively participate in all phases of product development by providing technical insights.
  • Propose innovative solutions that drive product growth and align with business objectives.

• Code Optimization

  • Refactor and optimize existing code to enhance performance, reliability, and scalability.
  • Minimize technical debt and improve maintainability throughout the application stack.

• Continuous Improvement

  • Champion ongoing improvements in development processes, security practices, and coding standards across the software lifecycle.
  • Facilitate knowledge sharing within the team, advocate best practices, and stay updated with emerging technologies and frameworks to foster a culture of continuous improvement.

• Software Architecture and Application Development

  • Define and implement a modular architecture that supports the seamless integration of functionalities independent of the core application, increasing flexibility and adaptability within the system.
  • Establish and maintain standardized communication protocols between new modules and the core application to ensure compatibility, scalability, and interoperability.
  • Develop new features and applications using a systematic and scalable approach, emphasizing modular design principles to ensure long-term extensibility and strict compliance with architectural standards.

Requirements

• Advanced Programming Skills

  • Strong expertise in PHP (Laravel, Symfony).
  • Design and implement responsive and adaptive interfaces for cross-platform compatibility, focusing on user-centered design and usability.

• API, Microservices, and Database Design

  • Deep understanding of API design principles and RESTful service architecture to ensure robust communication and data flow.
  • Proficiency in microservices-based architecture, encompassing principles of decoupling, domain-driven design, and API gateways for efficient resource management.
  • Design and manage efficient MySQL database schemas to meet business needs, using indexing, query optimization, and other performance enhancement techniques.

• Performance Optimization

  • Skilled in system performance tuning, including caching strategies, query optimization, and load balancing for enhanced application efficiency and responsiveness.

• Message-Driven Architecture

  • Familiarity with message-driven architectures, including RabbitMQ, Apache Kafka, or similar tools, for scalable, asynchronous communication.

• Testing and Quality Assurance

  • Proficiency with PHPUnit for automated unit and integration testing, ensuring code quality and adherence to SOLID principles.
  • Experience in end-to-end testing and proficiency with Postman for API testing.
  • Knowledge of secure coding practices, vulnerability assessments, and implementation of security features across all layers of the application stack.

• DevOps and Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)

  • Experience with CI/CD and DevOps practices, leveraging tools such as Jenkins, GitLab CI, and GitHub Actions to support rapid, reliable software releases.

• Containerization Knowledge

  • Hands-on experience with Docker to facilitate streamlined development, testing, and deployment processes, enhancing consistency across environments.

Nice to Have

• Experience with JavaScript frameworks such as Vue.js or Angular.
• Familiarity with JavaScript, HTML5, SASS, and CSS.
• Understanding of responsive web applications and cross-platform compatibility.
• Experience in Insurance or InsurTech.
• Have worked on complex B2B or enterprise software products.
• Experience modernizing large or legacy applications while keeping business-critical systems running.
• Have contributed to architectural decisions across multiple applications or services.

We Offer

• Opportunity to work on established software products that play an important role in Romania's insurance ecosystem.
• Solve meaningful technical challenges and implement predefined tasks.
• Contribute to how our products evolve technically, influence architectural decisions, and help improve the engineering practices behind business-critical applications.
• Work in an environment where senior engineers are expected to bring ideas, challenge solutions, and contribute their technical perspective to product development.
• Work on systems with real impact, while having the autonomy to improve how those systems are designed, built, and evolved.

About the Company

At Life is Hard, we are dedicated to simplifying operations, improving efficiency, and delivering better customer experiences in the insurance ecosystem. Our innovative solutions are used daily by insurance brokers and other market participants in Romania.