Backend Developer

Do you want to help evolve a mature SaaS platform by building reliable, scalable back-end services in PHP? Do you enjoy working with frameworks, ORMs, automated testing, and pragmatic architecture that supports real customer-facing features?

Don’t look any further — Foleon is expanding the team and looking for a back-end developer who can strengthen our core platform while contributing to future-facing technology choices.

Foleon is a content experience platform for creating immersive, measurable digital publications. We’re growing our product and platform capabilities and need engineers who can build robust APIs, maintainable services, and well-tested back-end features that help our customers create better digital content.

Your Mission

As part of a cross-functional product team, you’ll design, build, test, and maintain back-end functionality across our platform. You’ll work primarily with PHP and Node-based systems, collaborate closely with front-end and product colleagues, and help modernize our architecture while keeping quality, reliability, and maintainability at the center of your work.

Your Focus

• Design, build, and maintain back-end services, APIs, and platform features using PHP.

• Work with relational data models, Doctrine, database migrations, and performance-conscious queries.

• Write and maintain automated tests with PHPUnit and contribute to a strong testing culture.

• Develop clean, maintainable application code using modern PHP practices and frameworks such as Laravel or similar.

• Contribute to refactoring, modernization, and gradual improvement of existing systems, including legacy components where needed.

• Collaborate with front-end engineers, product owners, designers, and QA to deliver reliable customer-facing features.

• Participate in code reviews, technical planning, troubleshooting, and production support as part of an engineering team.

Your Competences

• Team Player: You communicate with clarity and empathy, whether you’re explaining a technical trade-off to a stakeholder or giving feedback to a peer.

• Ownership Mindset: You take pride in your work. If something breaks, you fix it; if something can be better, you propose a solution.

• Analytical & Creative: You see the "big picture" and can break down complex problems into manageable milestones.

• Feedback Pro: You thrive in a culture of radical candor, where giving and receiving constructive feedback is seen as the ultimate tool for growth.

Your Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional back-end development experience, with strong hands-on experience in PHP.

• Experience with modern PHP application development and frameworks; Laravel experience is a strong plus.

• Practical experience with Doctrine, relational databases, data modelling, and query optimization.

• Comfortable writing automated tests, especially with PHPUnit, and working in CI/CD-enabled development workflows.

• Strong understanding of REST APIs, service boundaries, authentication, validation, error handling, and maintainable integration patterns.

• Familiarity with cloud-native delivery, containers, observability, and production operations is a plus, including experience with microservices architectures on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Nice to have:

• Experience with Zend/Laminas or maintaining and modernizing legacy PHP applications.

• Experience with or other TypeScript-based back-end frameworks.

• Hands-on experience designing and operating event-driven architectures using asynchronous messaging, pub/sub patterns, queues, and resilient integration flows.

• Experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code, including effective prompting to improve productivity, code quality, and technical exploration.

What you get:

• Be part of a top-tier team in the Content Creation scale-up.

• Collaborate with an adaptable and flexible group of individuals to benefit from collective growth.

• Embrace the variety of backgrounds and values that each individual brings to the table.

• A flexible workplace that offers a conducive atmosphere for productivity.

Perks:

• Hybrid working: Work 2 days in the office and the rest at home. Plus, receive a monthly WFH allowance.

• Commuting covered: Not living in Amsterdam? We’ve got you. Get an NS Business Card or receive up to €400/month. Smooth travels!

• Pension program: You're not in this alone, we also contribute to your pension plan!

• Learning budget: You’ll get €500 each year to spend on courses, books, workshops, or anything that helps you grow.

• 25 holiday days + bonus days: You’ll get 25 paid days off, and if Christmas or New Year’s falls on a weekend, you get an extra day. + Special days off!

• ️ Floating holidays for inclusivity: Celebrate what matters to you. Move up to 2 public holidays per year to align with your cultural or religious observances.

• Work from abroad: 2 times a year, you can work from another country for up to 3 weeks.

• Office lunch: We’ll cover part of the cost of lunch at the office twice a week.

• 🏼 Fitness support: Stay active with up to €25/month toward your workouts, whether you’re into spinning, lifting, or just stretching.

• 🏼 Lease a bike: Need a new ride? Lease (e)bike for commuting or personal use at an affordable rate.

• Mental health matters: We offer access to a mental health platform and professional counseling.

• ️ Volunteer day: Take a paid day off each year to give back and support a cause close to your heart.

• Employee recognition program: Get the kudos you deserve through our recognition program.

Note: All our hiring is done in-house, so we’re not looking for agency support for this role. Thanks for understanding!