Senior PHP Engineer (E-commerce, Legacy Systems, AI-Assisted Development)

--NO AGENCIES-- We run a live e-commerce platform built on custom PHP and MySQL. It has legacy parts, it's always evolving, and it's real production traffic. We're looking for a senior engineer who can jump into that environment and get things done without needing a lot of hand-holding. This is not a role where you'll get detailed tickets and step-by-step specs. You'll get context, a goal, and access to the codebase. The rest is on you. What the work looks like day to day: You'll work across the stack: backend PHP, MySQL, and enough frontend (HTML, CSS, JS) to own features from start to finish. Some days that means debugging a weird production issue by digging through logs and old code. Other days it means sitting with a non-technical stakeholder, figuring out what they actually need, and building it. You'll test things in staging before they go live, and you'll push back when a requirement doesn't make sense. We also expect you to use AI tools as part of your workflow. Not as a novelty, but as a real part of how you work. If you're not already using Copilot, ChatGPT, or similar tools to write code faster, debug faster, and think through problems, this probably isn't the right fit. What we're looking for: 5+ years of PHP on real production systems. Strong MySQL (not just basic queries, actual performance work). Solid frontend skills. And experience working in legacy codebases, because that's the reality here. Experience integrating third-party APIs is expected. Bonus if you've worked with LLM APIs or built any internal tooling or automation. How you communicate: When something is unclear, you investigate first. You look at the code, check the logs, try to figure it out. When you do need to ask, you come with context: what you checked, what you found, what you think the answer is. You're comfortable talking directly with people from marketing, operations, or support, translating vague requests into something buildable, and flagging problems before they become bigger ones. This role is probably not for you if: You need someone to walk you through problems. You ask questions before doing any digging. Legacy code makes you uncomfortable. Or you're not actually using AI tools in your day-to-day work.