PHP Developer

PHP Developer

JOB DESCRIPTION

The Nationwide Group (TNG) is a pioneer in designing and developing outsourced financial services software, exclusively focused on creating comprehensive and customizable solutions for the real estate industry. Utilizing world-class technology, TNG delivers solutions to the entire mortgage life cycle through its affiliated organizations.

TNG benefits from a broad product suite, infrastructure, and industry expertise and has transformed the home purchase, sale, mortgage, and refinance process for consumers, lenders, realtors, and mortgage brokers.

POSITION DETAILS:

We are seeking a PHP Developer with a passion for maintaining robust applications while driving modernization across our backend systems. In this role, you'll be responsible for managing a mature PHP code base, resolving complex production issues at Tier 3 level, and contributing to long-term architectural improvements. A core part of the role involves refactoring legacy systems, migrating services into containerized environments, and updating outdated libraries to align with best practices and improve system resilience and scalability.

This position is ideal for developers who enjoy working with legacy systems and have the troubleshooting acumen to diagnose hard-to-find bugs, as well as the technical initiative to push for modernization and automation.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Maintain and Modernize Codebase
• Refactor legacy PHP code to improve maintainability and scalability.
• Identify and upgrade outdated libraries and packages.
• Assist in transforming monolithic services into containerized, modular applications.
• Write Efficient, Modern Code
• Deliver clean, efficient, and well-structured PHP code that meets evolving product and infrastructure needs.
• Ensure compatibility with modern development stacks, including containerization and CI/CD pipelines.
• Tier 3 Production Support and Troubleshooting
• Serve as the final escalation point for complex production issues.
• Perform root cause analysis, lead incident investigations, and implement durable resolutions.
• Proactively identify patterns of failure through logs, metrics, and monitoring tools.
• Champion Stability and Observability
• Enhance system reliability by integrating better observability, alerts, and performance monitoring.
• Contribute to automated recovery strategies and improve diagnostic tooling.
• Collaborate and Drive Change
• Work with cross-functional teams (DevOps, QA, Product) to improve deployment processes and code quality.
• Promote best practices in software engineering, including modernization strategies and documentation.

QUALIFICATIONS:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• 3+ years of hands-on experience in PHP development with a strong understanding of backend architecture.
• Proven success in troubleshooting complex issues and driving root cause resolution.
• Deep understanding of OOP, MVC frameworks (Laravel, Symfony, or Zend), and modern PHP (8.x).
• Experience with codebase modernization: upgrading PHP versions, replacing legacy components, and introducing new tooling.
• Familiarity with both SOAP and RESTful APIs.
• Solid understanding of relational databases (PostgreSQL).
• Proficient in Git, CI/CD, and Linux-based development environments
• Familiarity of Docker
• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative mindset

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working in a Tier 3 support or platform engineering capacity.
• Prior involvement in containerizing legacy applications or decomposing monolithic architectures.
• Bonus: experience with frontend technologies (JavaScript/React/Vue).

Ability to respond to changing demands and priorities. We are committed to providing persons with disabilities equal opportunities regarding all employment activities, including access to jobs and accommodations during employment as required, in accordance with the Ontario Human Rights Code (OHRC) and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).