Technical Lead - PHP / Laravel

Technical Lead – PHP / Laravel

Gateshead

Salary up to £100K DOE

One of the UK’s top online competition platforms, who deliver high-engagement experiences through complex game logic, live draws, ticket caps, loyalty systems, and more. Now, they’re investing in a brand-new platform—rebuilt from the ground up to be faster, smarter, and more scalable.

We’re looking for a Technical Lead to help architect and build this next-generation system. If you thrive on solving complex problems and want to shape the future of a fast-growing tech business, we want to hear from you.

The Role

As Technical Lead, you’ll work closely with our Technical Manager and development team to lead the rebuild of our platform. This is a hands-on role where you’ll design scalable architecture, manage integrations, and ensure a seamless transition from our current system.

This is not a standard e-commerce role—our platform handles high-volume competition mechanics, secure payments, and real-time user interaction.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the architecture and development of our new Laravel-based platform
• Collaborate with the Technical Manager to understand and migrate existing business logic
• Integrate with key services:
  • Cashflows (payments)
  • Cloudflare (security, caching, WAF)
  • Klaviyo (email/SMS marketing)
• Manage complex competition logic, live draws, ticket caps, and scheduling
• Optimise database performance and ensure secure, scalable infrastructure
• Support future features like new game types, loyalty modules, and affiliate systems
• Advise directors on technical strategy and best practices

Skills:

• Expert-level PHP (Laravel preferred)
• Strong SQL/MySQL database design
• REST API design and secure integrations
• Experience with cron jobs, queues, and background workers
• Payment gateway integration (Cashflows or similar)
• Infrastructure knowledge: NGINX, Apache, load balancing
• Cloudflare experience (WAF, caching, DNS, DDoS protection)
• Git, CI/CD, and code quality best practices
• AWS deployment experience
• Front-end: Vue.js, React or Alpine.js, plus HTML/CSS
• Experience with full development lifecycle

Desirable skills

• Experience with competition, lottery, or gaming platforms
• Redis or similar caching tools
• Docker/container-based development
• Advanced analytics or reporting pipelines

Who You Are

• A technically strong developer who enjoys building systems from scratch
• Able to reverse-engineer and improve complex legacy systems
• A clear communicator who can work with both technical and non-technical teams
• Security- and performance-focused, with a passion for clean, scalable code

Benefits

• Up to £100,000 base salary (DOE)
• Flexible hybrid/remote working
• Opportunity to shape the future of a high-growth platform
• Support to hire additional developers as needed
• A collaborative, forward-thinking team environment

Ready to lead something big? To apply please send your CV to Siobhan at and help us build the future of online competitions.