Requirements
Experience building backend applications in production with PHP
Strong backend engineering fundamentals with a modern framework such as CakePHP, Symfony or Laravel
Ability to break down complex problems and design simple, robust solutions
Good testing habits and attention to quality
Strong collaboration skills, openness to feedback, and a low-ego working style
Job Description
Join a remote team as a PHP Backend Engineer, building secure systems for password management products, focusing on API development, security, and code quality.


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THE CLIENT
Our client is a fast-growing cybersecurity product company rethinking how teams manage and share sensitive access. Their platform is trusted by 40,000+ organisations across 50+ countries — and growing fast. This is an engineering-led business: modern architecture, real technical challenges, and a strong focus on open source, privacy, and security. They’re building a fully remote, collaborative team and looking for engineers who take ownership and enjoy solving meaningful problems. If you want to work on a product with real impact at global scale — this is worth a conversation.

THE ROLE:
Our client is looking for a software engineer to join its Backend team and help build the systems behind its password and credential management products across Community, Enterprise and Cloud editions.
This is a backend engineering role in a security-sensitive product environment. The API sits at the centre of how our client handles business logic, access rights, integrations, data integrity and long-term product reliability. The role is well-suited to an engineer who enjoys solving complex product problems, building sustainable systems, and balancing security, simplicity and maintainability.
You would contribute across the full development lifecycle: understanding the problem, shaping the technical approach, implementing features, improving the codebase over time, and helping maintain a high standard of quality. This role will suit someone who likes ownership, thinks clearly about impact and trade-offs, and is motivated by building trustworthy software in an open-source environment.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
Build and improve backend services and API workflows across product suite
Translate functional and product requirements into clear, reliable technical solutions
Work on business logic, access control, integrations and security-sensitive application flows
Help maintain and improve code quality, test coverage, performance and backward compatibility
Contribute to technical design discussions and identify opportunities to simplify or strengthen the system over time
Collaborate with product, support, security and engineering peers to refine and deliver solutions
Contribute to documentation and knowledge sharing across the team

CORE REQUIREMENTS:
Experience building backend applications in production with PHP
Strong backend engineering fundamentals with a modern framework such as CakePHP, Symfony or Laravel
Ability to break down complex problems and design simple, robust solutions
Good testing habits and attention to quality
Comfort working across product, engineering and implementation questions — not just executing tickets
Strong collaboration skills, openness to feedback, and a low-ego working style
Interest in security, privacy, or building trustworthy software systems

NICE TO HAVE:
Experience working on security-sensitive applications or authentication / access-control problems
Exposure to cryptography-related systems or secure integrations
Experience with OpenAPI or well-structured public-facing APIs
Experience maintaining long-lived software products
Experience with directory integrations or identity systems such as LDAP, Active Directory, OAuth, JWT, SCIM or WebAuthn
Experience contributing to open-source projects
Familiarity with another language such as JavaScript, Bash, Python, Go or Rust

Tools and technologies you’ll work with: You may work across technologies such as PHP, CakePHP, SQL, PHPUnit, OpenAPI, Git and Docker, in Linux and macOS-based development environments. We do not expect candidates to bring experience with every tool listed here.

How you work
You take ownership of problems, not just tasks
You value simplicity and avoid over-engineering
You communicate clearly and raise risks early
You work well in an environment where feedback is frequent and constructive
Green Flags
Specific experience with CakePHP, as it's a primary tool.
Past roles in security-sensitive industries (e.g., fintech, auth platforms, healthtech).
Public contributions to open-source projects, especially in the security or PHP ecosystem.
Experience maintaining and evolving a long-lived software product, not just greenfield builds.
Experience with identity systems like LDAP, OAuth, SCIM, or WebAuthn.
Red Flags
No professional experience with modern PHP frameworks (Symfony, Laravel, CakePHP).
Experience is limited to WordPress, Drupal, or other CMS platforms without deep backend logic.
Resume shows a pattern of short tenures (<1 year) without seeing projects through.
Expresses a desire to only execute pre-defined tickets without contributing to design or problem-solving.
Not located in and/or does not have the right to work in Romania.
Salary expectations significantly above the stated EUR 64K maximum.