Technical Lead (PHP)

Job description

Alliance for Recruitment is the biggest recruitment agency in the Baltics, servicing clients in CEE & Nordics and creating a brighter future for people around! We are the largest headhunting house measured by capacity, a number of successful placements, and annual growth, raising a high-performing team of recruitment experts from various industries.

„Horizontal Media“ is a leading Lithuanian digital platform operator, managing some of the country’s most popular classified portals such as Autogidas.lt, Domoplius.lt and others. The company helps millions of users quickly and easily find what matters most—whether it's their first car, dream home, or quality electronics—by leveraging vast datasets and handling millions of interactions daily. Technology is the backbone of their business, continually driving improvements in reliability, performance, and user experience. With a strong focus on innovation, Horizontal Media aims to elevate its platforms further, connecting people with the best opportunities and solutions.

Job description:

This is a unique opportunity to own the technical future of two of Lithuania’s leading marketplaces. You’ll lead architecture, infrastructure, and product scaling decisions while mentoring engineers and shaping culture. You’ll have the freedom to bring ideas to life quickly – and see their impact across the entire market.

We’re looking for someone who thrives on modernizing systems, re-architecting for scale, and introducing new technologies where they create value.

You will have the mandate to rebuild and modernize the platform, shaping the future stack and ensuring it’s fit for the next decade.

This is not a “maintain what’s there” role – it’s a rare chance to reimagine a product used by hundreds of thousands of people, with the freedom to make key architectural decisions.

• Create and own the technology roadmap, balancing innovation with system stability and long-term scalability.
• Lead by example: design, review, and occasionally write code while guiding architecture decisions across backend, frontend, and infra.
• Hire, mentor, and grow a strong engineering team, creating an environment where people learn fast and deliver high-quality solutions.
• Partner with product managers and business leads to ensure our platforms evolve in step with user needs and strategic goals.
• Drive operational excellence: improve CI/CD, monitoring, testing, and infrastructure to maximize uptime, speed, and security.
• Shape the future of marketplaces in Lithuania by exploring new technologies, personalization, AI, and integrations.

Requirements:

• Proven experience in leading engineering teams, setting standards, and creating a culture of ownership and excellence.
• Experience managing and scaling high-traffic systems or complex platforms.
• Strategic thinking: ability to balance quick delivery with long-term technical vision.
• Proven hands-on engineering background (backend, infra, or full-stack) and ability to lead technical design.
• Strong knowledge of PHP, MySQL, caching (Memcached), Elasticsearch – with a good grasp of frontend technologies (React, JS, HTML, CSS).
• Lithuanian (C1+) required — daily client communication, documents, and meetings are in Lithuanian.
• English (B2+) preferred — partner/vendor coordination.

Bonus points if you:

• Have experience with marketplace platforms or large-scale transactional systems.
• Worked with cloud migrations, DevOps (Docker/Kubernetes), or distributed systems.
• Are curious about applying data science/AI for personalization, recommendations, or fraud prevention.

Company offers:

• Impact on the company: your work won’t just shape the product — it will directly influence our growth, strategy, and long-term success.
• Impact at scale: your work will touch hundreds of thousands of people every day.
• Tools of your choice: we’ll equip you with the hardware and software you need to do your best work.
• Culture: collaborative team, regular offsites, and company traditions that stick.
• Hybrid setup: we encourage office work for collaboration, with flexibility to work remotely several days per week.
• Competitive salary & benefits: tailored to your experience, role impact, performance.

Monthly Salary:

5000-7500 Eur gross (Although it may vary depending on your skills and experience.)