Backend Software Engineer

SUMMARY:
Our client is seeking a strong Backend Software Engineer to join their development team. This is an exciting opportunity for a software engineer who is passionate about backend development and wants to broaden their expertise into platform engineering, DevOps, infrastructure, and production systems.

The successful candidate will primarily focus on designing, developing, debugging, maintaining, and improving backend services and APIs that form part of the organisation’s core platform. Alongside their software development responsibilities, they will work closely with the existing Platform / DevOps Engineer, gaining hands-on exposure to AWS, Linux, CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, monitoring, deployments, and production troubleshooting.

This role is specifically designed for a software engineer who wants to develop beyond application development alone. The successful candidate will progressively take on greater platform responsibility, with the long-term objective of becoming a well-rounded Software / Platform Engineer capable of working across code, services, databases, messaging, deployment, infrastructure, monitoring, and production environments.

POSITION INFO:
Key Responsibilities: Design, develop, maintain, and improve backend services and APIs. Build new platform functionality and internal tools. Debug application and production issues and investigate performance and reliability challenges. Write clean, maintainable, testable, and well-structured code. Participate in code reviews and contribute to technical and architectural decisions. Work with databases, queues, asynchronous processing, and event-driven systems. Support applications throughout the full software development lifecycle. Work closely with the existing Platform \/ DevOps Engineer on infrastructure and operational activities. Assist with production deployments and troubleshoot deployment-related issues. Work with CI\/CD pipelines and contribute to deployment improvements. Gain practical experience with AWS infrastructure and cloud environments. Work with Terraform and Ansible as part of Infrastructure-as-Code and automation initiatives. Monitor production systems and assist with application and infrastructure performance investigations. Participate in production incident investigation and resolution. Automate repetitive operational tasks and improve deployment and operational tooling. Gradually take ownership of increasingly complex platform and DevOps responsibilities. Contribute to improving platform processes, documentation, reliability, and operational efficiency. Requirements: Strong backend software development experience. Solid experience with PHP. Strong experience with Symfony or a comparable backend framework. Experience developing REST APIs and backend services. Strong understanding of object-oriented programming principles. Experience with ORM \/ Doctrine. Experience working with MySQL. Experience with software testing and debugging existing applications. Experience with Node.js and TypeScript will be advantageous. Exposure to Express or similar frameworks, WebSockets, background workers, or event-driven systems will be beneficial. Experience with Python will be advantageous, particularly for automation, workers, integrations, AWS Lambda, or internal tooling. Good Linux fundamentals. Basic understanding of networking and application deployment concepts. A genuine interest in AWS, infrastructure, DevOps, and production systems. Willingness to learn and work with Infrastructure-as-Code. Ability to understand systems beyond the application code itself. Experience with AWS, Terraform, Ansible, Jenkins, Spinnaker, Docker, Prometheus, Grafana, RabbitMQ, Redis, MySQL, or Aurora will be advantageous. Core Competencies and Skills: Strong backend software engineering and problem-solving abilities. Excellent understanding of software development principles and best practices. Ability to write clean, maintainable, and testable code. Strong debugging and troubleshooting capabilities. Curiosity and willingness to understand how applications are built, deployed, operated, monitored, and scaled. Strong analytical and systems-thinking abilities. Interest in infrastructure, cloud technologies, automation, and platform engineering. Ability to work effectively alongside a Platform \/ DevOps Engineer and learn through practical collaboration. Willingness to participate in production troubleshooting and operational activities. Ability to progressively take ownership of platform responsibilities. Strong communication and collaboration skills. Ability to work independently while contributing effectively within a technical team. Strong attention to detail and commitment to reliability, quality, and continuous improvement. Career Growth: This position offers a defined progression from Backend Software Engineer → Software Engineer with Platform Responsibilities → Software \/ Platform Engineer . Initially, the successful candidate will focus primarily on software development while gaining hands-on exposure to AWS, Linux, CI\/CD, Terraform, Ansible, monitoring, production troubleshooting, and infrastructure architecture. As their experience develops, they will progressively take ownership of deployment issues, CI\/CD changes, infrastructure changes, Infrastructure-as-Code, monitoring and alerting, production troubleshooting, operational automation, and AWS resource management. The long-term objective is for the engineer to become capable of owning significant portions of the application infrastructure, AWS environments, deployment systems, CI\/CD, monitoring and observability, Infrastructure-as-Code, platform reliability, capacity and performance, and infrastructure automation. Application Note: If you have not received feedback within two weeks, please consider your application unsuccessful. Your profile will remain in our database for future opportunities. For more exciting IT vacancies, explore opportunities in: Software Development (Back-End, Front-End, Full Stack) Mobile Development Business & Systems Analysis BI, SQL & Data Engineering UI\/UX Design Data Science & Analytics Big Data Engineering Cloud Engineering Infrastructure & Platform Engineering DevOps & SecOps Cybersecurity For more information, contact: Reinie Du Preez Senior Specialist Recruitment Consultant