Mid-Level PHP Development Engineer

Mid-Level PHP / Symfony Development Engineer

Permanent role, 37 hours per week

Competitive Salary (£32,000 to £45,000 FTE dependent on experience)

Hybrid Role – home working with minimum 2 set office days in Leeds

The role 

Are you ready to join an innovative and dynamic organisation redefining the future of education? This is a rare and exciting opportunity to join a passionate and forward-thinking team, driving impactful change and shaping the educational landscape for future generations. You'll have the unique privilege of helping to support White Rose Education’s vision of empowering educators, enhancing student outcomes and expanding our reach and impact globally.

We’re on the lookout for a talented and passionate Mid-Level PHP / Symfony Developer to join our talented engineering team and help shape the future of education for children across the world.

Working as Mid-Level PHP / Symfony Developer, the core purpose of your role will be to play a key role in designing, building, and maintaining our web applications and APIs using modern development practices, that serve Education professionals worldwide. The ideal candidate will be passionate about clean, efficient code, enjoy solving complex problems, and will thrive in a collaborative working environment. 

Could it be you? 

You will need to be a great team player, as excellent teamwork is at the heart of everything we do. You’ll be a positive thinker, willing to flex, adapt and go the extra mile. A natural ability to develop and maintain excellent professional working relationships, solve complex problems and manage multiple priorities with tact and discretion is essential. This role will be immensely rewarding, and you will relish the excitement of helping to transform lives. 

Applications:

Closing date: 4pm on Friday 17th April 2026 

Interview date: To be confirmed 

Start date of role: ASAP 

Interview Process: 

All applications will be considered in line with our recruitment practices. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to attend an assessment day. 

Requirements

The purpose of the role: 

We’re looking for a Mid-Level PHP / Symfony Developer to join our talented engineering team. You’ll play a key role in designing, building, and maintaining our web applications and APIs using modern development practices, that serves Education professionals worldwide. The postholder will be passionate about clean, efficient code, enjoy solving complex problems, and will thrive in a collaborative working environment. 

Key accountabilities: 

• Develop, maintain, and optimise Symfony-based APIs and backend services. 

• Write clean, scalable, and well-documented PHP code following best practices. 

• Integrate with and deploy services on AWS, including EC2 and AWS Lambda. 

• Participate in code reviews, testing, and continuous integration processes. 

• Collaborate closely with front-end developers, QA engineers and stakeholders. 

• Support and maintain existing systems, troubleshoot issues, and contribute to technical documentation. 

• Contribute ideas and technical insight to help shape architectural decisions and improve development workflows. 

Other duties: 

All staff must have an awareness and commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of students. It is an expectation that all staff will share this commitment.

All staff must abide by company policies and procedures, copies of which are available on our HR system. 

Whilst every effort has been made to explain the main duties and responsibilities of the post, each individual task may not be identified. Employees will be expected to comply with any reasonable request to undertake work of a similar level that is not specified within this job description. 

This job description is current at the date shown. It will be reviewed at least annually, and in consultation with you, it may be changed by the Head of Partnerships to reflect or anticipate changes in the role or business need. 

Key relationships of the role: 

Heads of Departments 

Direct reports: 

N/A 

Person Specification – Skills & Experience

  Essential: 

• Proven experience developing with PHP (8 or above) and Symfony (6) frameworks. 

• Strong understanding of RESTful API design and integration. 

• Hands-on experience with AWS services, particularly EC2 and Lambda. 

• Experience with Git, modern CI/CD pipelines and JIRA for ticket management. 

• Familiarity with relational databases (MySQL) and ORM tools (Doctrine). 

• Ability to write maintainable, testable, and efficient code. 

• Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail. 

Desirable:

• Front-end experience with JavaScript, TypeScript, or React. 

• Exposure to Docker or containerised deployment environments. 

• Understanding of serverless architectures and microservices. 

• Experience working in Agile environments. 

• Familiarity with automated testing frameworks (PHPUnit 11, Codeception 5). 

Essential personal attributes:

• A proactive, self-motivated approach with strong ownership of tasks. 

• Good communication skills, able to explain technical ideas clearly. 

• A collaborative team player who enjoys learning and sharing knowledge. 

• Commitment to continuous improvement and keeping up with new technologies.