Senior PHP Developer (Technology & AI Labs)

This is a remote position.

Senior PHP Developer (Technology & AI Labs)

Embrace Technology Group & AI Labs

Location:Remote

Reports to:Engineering Leadership, Embrace Technology Group

About Embrace Technology Group

Embrace Technology Group is the unified engineering organization across the Embrace portfolio, encompassing our Venture AI Labs. We build and modernize software products across six regulated industry verticals, and we are reshaping how that work gets done — AI-first, forward-deployed, and outcome-driven. Our engineers ship real products to real customers, fast.

The Role

We are hiring a Senior PHP Developer to join Embrace Technology Group. You will work as a forward-deployed engineer, embedding with product teams and portfolio companies to build new products and modernize established ones. You will write code across the full stack — backend services, APIs, data, and UI — and operate in an AI-first environment where the majority of code is produced through leading AI coding tools.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You'll design, develop, and scale core platform capabilities, mentor engineers, lead initiatives, and ensure the scalability and reliability of our applications — while collaborating closely with product, engineering, and operations teams.

What You'll Do

Hands-On Development & Architecture (Primary Focus)

• Design, develop, and maintain high-performance web applicationsusing PHP 8 and MySQL.
• Build and enhance interactive frontend applicationsusing AngularJS and jQuery.
• Architect and implement scalable and maintainable backend systems and APIsbuilt on the Yii2 framework.
• Write clean, maintainable, and efficient codefollowing modern software design principles and best practices.
• Design efficient database schemas, queries, and indexing strategiesto ensure high performance and scalability.
• Conduct code reviews and technical design reviewsto maintain code quality and engineering standards.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex issuesincluding application performance, database optimization, and system reliability.
• Ensure the platform follows secure coding practicesand modern development standards.

Full-Stack Application Development

• Develop end-to-end product featuresacross both backend and frontend layers.
• Build and maintain RESTful APIs and backend servicesusing PHP.
• Integrate frontend applicationswith backend services and MySQL databases.
• Improve existing systemsby refactoring legacy code and modernizing architecture where needed.

Technical Leadership & Collaboration

• Provide technical guidance and mentorshipto junior and mid-level engineers.
• Participate in architecture discussions and technology decisionsacross Embrace Technology Group.
• Collaborate with Product Managers, Designers, and QA teamsto translate requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Support agile development practices, including sprint planning, backlog grooming, and release planning.
• Drive engineering best practices, coding standards, and documentationacross the team.
• Work AI-first, using Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or JetBrains AI as your primary day-to-day development tools. The majority of your code will be AI-assisted, and you will review, refine, and validate that output to a production bar.
• Contribute to new product builds and modernizationacross Embrace's six regulated industry verticals, plus special projects from Venture AI Labs — prototypes, applied experiments, and zero-to-one product bets.

Requirements

What We're Looking For

• 8+ years of professional PHP development experience, with strong expertise in PHP 8 and modern PHP development practices.
• Hands-on experience with the Yii2 framework and strong understanding of MVC architecture and design patterns.
• Extensive MySQL experience — schema design, query optimization, and performance tuning for large-scale production systems.
• Solid frontend experience with AngularJS and jQuery, including building and integrating interactive UIs with backend services.
• Experience developing RESTful APIs and web services, following secure coding practices and web application security principles.
• Strong understanding of OOP and software design patterns applied to real production codebases.
• Experience leading technical initiatives or mentoring engineering teams, with strong communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Hands-on AI-first development experience with Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or JetBrains AI. You know how to prompt, review, and steer AI output — and when to override it.
• Solid fundamentals in software design, testing, secure-by-default engineering, and observability.
• Strong communication and ownership — comfortable in a remote, forward-deployed environment with shifting context across products and teams.

Nice to Have

• Experience working in a high-velocity R&D group, innovation lab, incubator, fast-moving startup, or skunkworks-style teaminside a larger enterprise.
• Familiarity with modern frontend frameworksor experience migrating from AngularJS to newer frameworks (React, Vue, etc.).
• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS or Azure, including CI/CD pipelines and automated testing frameworks.
• Exposure to LLM-powered features— RAG, evals, agent frameworks, tool use.
• Prior work inside regulated industries(financial services, healthcare, legal, insurance, compliance-driven SaaS, etc.).
• Experience working with high-traffic production systemsand performance optimization at scale.

Why Embrace Technology Group

• Build real products for real customers across six regulated industries and Venture AI Labs.
• A mandate to build AI-first, not AI-bolted-on.
• Work alongside senior and principal engineers who will sharpen your craft.
• Remote-first, outcomes-focused culture.

Benefits

• Competitive salary commensurate with experience.
• Opportunities for career advancement and professional development.
• ​Experience collaborating with a diverse, global team within a remote work setting.