Lead Symfony Developer

About Us

At SCTR Services, we're a dynamic and hungry tech company that creates outstanding digital products and services. Our products combine streaming media, gamification, and online communities, and we serve a wide range of customers worldwide. We're always growing and adapting to keep pace with the latest technology, and we foster a culture that rewards creativity and innovation to continually raise the bar and delight our customers and partners.

Our headquarters is in San Diego, and our team is lean, talented, and mostly remote. We move quickly, build thoughtfully, and take pride in shipping products that people genuinely love. Whether it's our marketing team crafting campaigns or our engineers automating workflows with AI, every person here has real ownership and real impact.

Role Overview

We're looking for a Senior Symfony Developer to join our Engineering team and take on a pivotal role in the continued development of our web platform. You'll work across the full stack — architecting robust backend systems in Symfony/PHP, building clean and performant frontend interfaces, and collaborating with our team on AI-powered tooling and automation workflows.

This is a hands-on technical role with meaningful ownership. You'll be expected to produce high-quality code, make architectural decisions, mentor junior developers, and contribute to a culture of engineering excellence. If you love building products that scale, enjoy working in a fast-paced environment, and want your work to directly shape the experience of thousands of daily active users — this role is for you.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable web applications using Symfony (PHP), ensuring best practices around architecture, performance, and code quality.
• Build and iterate on full-stack features, including RESTful APIs, database schemas, and responsive frontend components.
• Collaborate closely with our product and marketing teams to translate requirements into polished, production-ready features.
• Contribute to the development of internal AI tools and automation systems that power our content and engineering workflows.
• Conduct thorough code reviews, provide mentorship to less experienced developers, and uphold high engineering standards across the team.
• Optimize application performance, reliability, and security across our platform infrastructure.
• Participate in sprint planning, architecture discussions, and technical roadmap conversations.
• Proactively identify technical debt and drive initiatives to address it sustainably.

Required Skills & Experience — Backend

• 5+ years of professional PHP development experience, with at least 3 years using the Symfony framework.
• Strong command of Symfony components: Doctrine ORM, Security, Console, Forms, Messenger, and Event Dispatcher.
• Proficiency with relational databases (MySQL or PostgreSQL) — schema design, query optimization, and migrations.
• Experience building and consuming RESTful APIs; familiarity with API Platform is a plus.
• Solid understanding of software design patterns, SOLID principles, and domain-driven design.

Required Skills & Experience — Frontend

• Proficiency in modern JavaScript/TypeScript and at least one frontend framework (Vue.js, React, or similar).
• Comfort with HTML5, CSS3, and responsive design principles; experience with Tailwind CSS or Bootstrap is a plus.
• Familiarity with Webpack, Vite, or Symfony's Webpack Encore asset pipeline.

Required Skills & Experience — Infrastructure & Tooling

• Working knowledge of Linux server environments, Docker, and CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or similar).
• Experience with caching strategies (Redis, Varnish) and background job processing.
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or equivalent) is highly desirable.

Soft Skills & Working Style

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills — you can clearly articulate technical trade-offs to both engineers and non-engineers.
• Self-directed and comfortable working asynchronously in a remote-first environment.
• A collaborative, low-ego approach to engineering — you care about the outcome, not the credit.
• Lead the team when necessary, mentor, and coach other software developers.
• Keep track of GitHub tickets, commenting on them and changing the status of the tickets as you make progress.
• Bonus: experience building or integrating AI/LLM-powered features or automation pipelines.

Additional Requirements

• Must be located in the United States (any time zone), or willing to work US time zone business hours.
• Must be eligible to work in the US; we are not able to provide visa sponsorship at this time.
• Reliable internet connection and a professional remote working setup.

Compensation & Benefits

• Direct access to the company CTO.
• Ability to be a critical driving force in the creation of new products and services.
• Be part of a company that prioritizes the usage of cutting-edge technology.
• Flexible work environment.
• Full-time salaried, with opportunities for bonuses and growth.
• 401(k) and full benefits (health, dental, vision — 100% employer-paid).
• 2 weeks paid vacation (increases with tenure).
• 12 days paid time off (including 8 company holidays).
• Monthly gym membership and home internet reimbursement.

Special Considerations: May encounter sensitive or confidential materials.