Senior Full Stack Engineer (PHP Laravel) | Contract, Outside IR35

Senior Full Stack Engineer (PHP / Laravel)

Contract Manchester based. Outside IR35 starting early October. Full location detail below.

What were recruiting for

Were hiring a Senior Full Stack PHP engineer to join a long-term team on a genuinely large-scale online marketplace. Very few platforms handle a product catalogue or transaction volume at this level.

The roadmap includes agentic AI workflows built into the platform retail media integrated directly into the marketplace and infrastructure work targeting cost and performance at high volume.

A lot of this is being attempted at volumes that have rarely been tested in a marketplace before so the work leans research-led rather than routine.

Its a fast-paced scale-up environment on a complex platform. Youll do well here if youre comfortable with ambiguity and shifting ground and confident enough to advocate for the technical decisions you make.

What youll be doing

Youll join the team part-way through a major multi-year technology transformation.

The current client-facing platform runs on PHP and Laravel and thats where your day to day sits: fixing real issues and building new features within the existing stack.

The longer-term direction is a move towards a service-based architecture with a move to AWS under active evaluation. As that world takes shape youll have room to grow into it.

This is genuinely end-to-end full-stack work: front-end APIs data auth and the platform that ties it together.

This is a long-term role part of the fabric of the team rather than a short engagement. No juniors. Its a demanding environment and youll need to be productive quickly without a long ramp.

Who youll be working with

Youll be engaged by hedgehog lab a UK digital product consultancy and certified B Corp with 20 years behind us and offices in Edinburgh Newcastle Leeds Manchester and London.

We place engineers into long-term client teams on complex high-stakes platforms. This is one of those engagements.

Location and remote working

Contract engaged outside IR35 via your own limited company. Starting early October.

Flexible working largely remote. We just ask that youre based within 50 miles of Manchester as occasional visits to the office will be needed.

Applications from outside this area wont be considered.

What we need

The essentials:

• Senior to principal full-stack experience genuinely end-to-end across front-end APIs and data

• Strong hands-on PHP and Laravel working in a large established codebase

• You can pick up and build within an existing platform quickly rather than only working greenfield

• You can advocate for technical decisions and communicate them clearly

• Comfortable delivering at pace in a complex high-volume environment

• Comfortable working in English written and spoken

Nice to have:

• Hands-on AWS ideally with infrastructure as code (Terraform or CDK)

• Retail or e-commerce background

• GenAI or agentic workflows in your engineering practice

Ready to apply

Submit your application below.