Sr. Laravel Developer

Role Overview

We are seeking a Senior Laravel Developer to work on site in Bloomfield Hills with a minimum of 5+ years of professional experience building, maintaining, and scaling production web applications. This role demands deep expertise in Laravel, API design and integration, database architecture, and system level thinking. The ideal candidate will own projects end to end, mentor junior developers, and collaborate closely with DevOps, product, and security teams. This senior position focuses on understanding why architectural decisions matter in real world production environments, not just how to write code.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain high performance Laravel applications in production environments
• Architect scalable, maintainable systems using Laravel best practices
• Write clean, testable, well documented, and maintainable code
• Lead architectural decisions around application structure, service layers, and data flow
• Refactor legacy systems and optimize existing codebases for performance and scalability

API Development & Integrations

• Design and implement RESTful APIs and/or GraphQL APIs
• Integrate with third party APIs including OAuth, webhooks, rate limited APIs, and signed requests
• Build secure API authentication and authorization mechanisms such as JWT, OAuth2, and API keys
• Ensure API reliability, versioning, error handling, and documentation

Database Design & Data Modeling

• Design and maintain relational database schemas (MySQL / PostgreSQL)
• Create efficient data models, migrations, indexes, and relationships
• Optimize complex queries and improve database performance
• Understand transactional integrity, locking, and concurrency concerns
• Experience with large datasets and production-scale databases

DevOps & Deployment (Plus)

• Assist in or own deployment workflows (CI/CD pipelines)
• Work with Docker, Docker Compose, and containerized environments
• Experience with Linux servers and cloud infrastructure (AWS, DigitalOcean, Azure)
• Configure and maintain environment-specific application settings
• Understand application monitoring, logging, and alerting
• Collaborate with infrastructure and security teams to ensure uptime and reliability

Security & Best Practices

• Implement secure coding practices and follow OWASP guidelines
• Manage authentication, authorization, and role-based access control
• Secure APIs, user data, and sensitive configuration values
• Participate in security reviews and remediation efforts

Leadership & Collaboration

• Mentor junior and mid-level developers
• Perform code reviews and enforce coding standards
• Collaborate with product owners, designers, and stakeholders
• Participate in technical planning, estimations, and roadmap discussions
• Take ownership of deliverables and deadlines

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional Laravel development experience
• Strong mastery of PHP 8+ and the Laravel ecosystem
• Proven experience building production-grade APIs
• Deep understanding of MVC architecture
• Advanced experience with MySQL and/or PostgreSQL
• Strong knowledge of Eloquent ORM, Queues & background jobs, Events & listeners, Caching (Redis, Memcached), Authentication & authorization
• Experience working with Git and collaborative workflows
• Ability to troubleshoot complex production issues
• Strong communication and documentation skills

Preferred / Bonus Skills

• DevOps experience (CI/CD, Docker, cloud hosting)
• Experience with Redis, RabbitMQ, or other message queues
• Familiarity with Vue.js, React, or modern frontend stacks
• Experience with microservices or service oriented architectures
• Knowledge of API security, rate limiting, and abuse prevention
• Experience in regulated or security sensitive environments
• Background in cybersecurity or infrastructure heavy systems

What We're Looking For

• A senior level engineer, not a junior or mid level developer
• Someone who can own systems, not just tickets
• Strong problem solver with real world production experience
• Detail oriented with a focus on long term maintainability
• Comfortable working in fast moving, technically demanding environments

Location & Work Environment

Location: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

On Site

Collaborative engineering environment with real ownership and impact

Compensation & Benefits

• Compensation: Competitive salary based on experience
• Performance-based growth opportunities
• Opportunity to work on complex, real-world systems
• Job Type: Full-time
• Pay: $50,000.00 - $90,000.00 per year
• Benefits: Paid time off
• Experience: Laravel: 5 years (Required)
• Ability to Commute: Pontiac, MI 48341 (Required)
• Work Location: In person