Software Engineer (PHP/Laravel)

About the role

SALIX Data Africa is looking for a PHP Developer (Laravel) to join its engineering team and help build web applications, APIs and data-driven systems for one of its key clients. You will design, develop, optimise and maintain enterprise-grade web applications and backend services, working with cross-functional teams to deliver secure, scalable and high-performing solutions.

Key responsibilities

• Design, develop, test and maintain robust applications using PHP and Laravel.
• Build and integrate RESTful APIs, third-party services and external data sources.
• Design, optimise and manage relational databases including MySQL and PostgreSQL.
• Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks, bugs and scalability issues.
• Write clean, reusable code and run unit and integration tests.
• Take part in code reviews and collaborate with product managers, designers and data engineers.

Required profile

• 3-5 years of professional experience developing applications with PHP and Laravel.
• Strong database design, SQL optimisation, indexing and performance tuning.
• Proven experience building and consuming RESTful APIs and JSON services.
• Understanding of OOP, MVC, SOLID principles and design patterns.
• Git and hands-on testing tool experience (PHPUnit, Pest or similar).

Preferred skills

• HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and frontend frameworks such as Vue.js, React or Alpine.js.
• Caching with Redis, Memcached or similar.
• Laravel Queues, Horizon, RabbitMQ, Docker, microservices, AWS or DigitalOcean, CI/CD pipelines.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis; only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.