Senior Backend Engineer (PHP)

Reward Gateway, part of Edenred, is a global leader in benefits and employee engagement. We help businesses attract, engage, and retain top talent through strategic reward, recognition, and well-being solutions.

Guided by our shared missions – ‘Making the World a Better Place to Work’ and ‘Enriching Connections, For Good’ – we’re committed to transforming workplaces and improving people’s daily lives.

Our team embodies entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, and respect. We push boundaries, speak up, and stay human, fostering a culture where imagination thrives.

Wellbeing and benefits:

We believe people perform at their best when they feel supported both professionally and personally. Our benefits have been designed around five core principles: Fairness, Choice, Balance, Wow and Easy. Benefits vary by country and location and are regularly reviewed to meet the needs of our people.

Find out more about our rewards, benefits and wellbeing offering here.

Location & Contract Type: This is a hybrid role that would require presence in our Sofia or Plovdiv office at least twice per week, as agreed.

What You’ll be Doing:

• Interpret, define, and develop software solutions based on written requirements and technical specifications.
• Identify opportunities for improvement in existing products and implement enhancements across the platform.
• Troubleshoot, test, and maintain core applications and databases to ensure performance, reliability, and scalability.
• Collaborate with QA to define acceptance criteria and assist with debugging and issue resolution.
• Contribute to the creation and upkeep of comprehensive technical documentation.
• Write clean, maintainable, and well-structured code that adheres to established coding standards and best practices.
• Work effectively within globally distributed, cross-functional teams.
• Participate in mentoring, coaching, and knowledge-sharing initiatives to support team development.

The Experience and Key Skills you will have:

• Proven experience in backend web application development, with strong proficiency in PHP 8+ and MySQL.
• Solid understanding of OOP principles, SOLID, and modern software engineering best practices.
• Proven experience applying design patterns to build maintainable and scalable solutions.
• Hands-on experience with Unit and Integration testing (e.g., PHPUnit, Pest).
• Strong working knowledge of SQL, RESTful APIs, and GraphQL.
• Ability to leverage AI‑assisted development tools to improve productivity, code quality, and documentation.
• Excellent English communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively within cross-functional, globally distributed teams.
• Comfortable working in environments that follow strong Agile practices, including iterative development, continuous improvement, and close collaboration with product

The interview process:

• Screening interview with our Senior Talent Acquisition Partner
• First stage online interview with our Engineering Leads
• Final stage online interview with technical Q&A and a coding review exercise

At Reward Gateway | Edenred, we are committed to ensuring an inclusive and accessible recruitment process for all candidates. If you have any specific requirements or need reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment journey, please let your Talent Acquisition Partner know. Your needs are important to us, and we want to ensure an equitable experience for every candidate.

Be comfortable. Be you.

We want every employee to feel comfortable bringing their passion, creativity and individuality to work. We value all cultures, backgrounds and experiences, because we believe diversity drives innovation and makes us stronger. Our approach to hiring and building teams is about more than filling roles – it’s about creating an environment where everyone can thrive, feel supported, and contribute to our mission of making the world a better place to work!

About Reward Gateway

Reward Gateway is culture and client driven. We’re obsessed with putting the “Human” in HR and are proud to have been 100% dedicated to HR for over a decade. Since 2007, we’ve been right by the side of the world’s most innovative HR people, giving them beautiful products and tools they can use to attract, engage and retain their people.

The world’s most successful companies treat their people differently. They generate stock market returns of twice their peers and they have half the employee turnover. 76% of CEOs recognize that employee engagement is vital to their success but only 24% say they have a highly engaged company. Bridging that engagement gap is what drives us.