Job Description

Ever wish your CEO encouraged you to write more automated tests? Or even just understood their importance? Want to work where  clean code isn’t a luxury but a priority?

Our founder and CEO is a developer himself , and our elegant code  is the vein that keeps our company healthy and growing. You’ll never have to advocate for the  importance of investing in code quality . You can save time (and frustrations) and spend it on  doing what matters in a healthy, collaborative environment where your ideas, energy and time are valued . 

You’ll be involved in all cycles of software development, including decision-making, so there are incredible opportunities for you to  take initiative, make meaningful contributions, and grow . Forget political struggles or long, pointless debates. You’ll be in a team with minimal distance between word and action, where decisions are made ultra-fast.  

This is a  rare opportunity  to work exclusively with senior-level developers in a diverse, highly organized, result-driven environment where you can  thrive personally and professionally .  

You’ll become an  essential part of our team , someone who is making a direct impact on not only the core product and reputation of our organization but also the whole world of education and beyond! 

The IxDF is the  global leader in online UX/UI design education . We hold the trust of industry giants like Adobe and IBM, who rely on our courses to train their teams. Prestigious universities, including MIT and the University of Cambridge, use our material into their curricula. Help us  take online education to new heights and make a  meaningful impact on humankind . We’re entering our third decade with over 170,000 graduates. 

We’re proud to have assembled a remarkable team of unicorns who uplift, motivate, and push each other to excel daily. There's a seat open for someone who shares our passion for excellence. Could that be you? 

Project Overview 

Our flagship product is a  vast platform with over 30 sub-domains for online courses, masterclasses, online forums, and community meet-ups in 508 cities in 107 countries. We understand what PHP developers need to thrive, and we've created an environment that delivers.  

• Close to Legacy-Free Codebase. We know how technical debt and legacy code can turn into quicksand, so we continually eradicate it. Some examples include  the complete rewrite of our notification and payment system  and numerous enhancements made to our course platform .  
• Consistent Coding Standards. We are proud of our strict coding standards, which is the cornerstone of our clean and maintainable codebase. You can find numerous examples in the  IxDF Handbook , which includes our conventions for  PHP ,  Laravel ,  SQL ,  JavaScript , and  CSS , along with other  useful resources . You can also find other examples in the  IxDF UI Kit, which we’re currently rebuilding into an industry-leading  Design System and our  handy IxDF component library . 
• Crystal-Clear Documentation. Clarity is key. Any line of code should be a succinct, well-crafted, and self-explanatory piece of communication to your future self or your colleague. To string things together, we mix in just the right amount of documentation, with best practices such as focusing on the “why?” and keeping it simple.  
• Focus on what matters : Our CI/CD pipeline uses quality tools such as Psalm, PHPStan, Rector, PHPCS, PHP-CS-Fixer, Deptrac, phpcpd, and ESLint to ensure consistency and code quality. This means we’re almost bug-free despite having numerous, zero-downtime, fully automated deployments to production every day. We don’t like bugs and would rather focus on what matters most. 
• Test Coverage : “The only way to go fast is to go well - Robert C. Martin”. We love automated testing, especially Unit Tests, and use TDD as much as we can. We've been increasing our test coverage over the years, reaching an overall 38% test coverage throughout the system, with critical systems having over 80% test coverage. 

The Stack You Will Work On 

#UseThePlatform. We focus on enduring technologies over the latest fleeting frameworks so that  our developers' knowledge continually grows instead of becoming outdated after each trend has passed. This philosophy allows us to build robust, maintainable and  beautiful code that stands the test of time rather than chasing the latest hype. Some of our key technologies include: 

• Always latest PHP and Laravel versions 
• Modular monolith comprising 30+ bounded contexts 
• Laravel ecosystem: Horizon, Nova, Scout, Pennant, Passport, Inertia, and more 
• Web Components, Htmx, Tailwind, Vue.js, Inertia.js, Vite 
• Server: Docker, Sail, Octane, Forge, nginx 
• DBs: MySQL 8, Redis (Pub/Sub, Cache, Queue Driver) 
• Testing: PHPUnit, Laravel Dusk, Cypress 
• Advanced CI/CD: GitHub actions,Deployer, Bash 
• Code Quality: Psalm, PHPStan, Rector, PHPCS, PHP_CS_Fixer, Phpcpd 
• Integrations: Stripe, PayPal, Amazon Pay, Twilio, Mailgun, MailerLite, GitHub, Forge, Coconut, ImageKit, and more 
• Cloud: AWS, GCP, Digital Ocean 
• APM & Monitoring: NewRelic, CloudWatch, BugSnag, GTMetrix 

What You Will Be Doing 

We are committed to excellence , and we seek a like-minded enthusiast to join us. This role is  not for the average ; it's a calling for a  true clean coder . Ahead of you is a  highly rewarding and enriching journey on which you’ll: 

• Make an impact as you contribute to the  development of the back-end modules for interaction-design.org , encompassing new feature development, constant refactoring, and infrequent bug fixing. 
• Write maintainable and  clean code, covered with clean automated tests , including contributions to our open-source packages. 
• Be an integral part of our cross-functional teams to refine specifications for new features and enhancements. 
• Maintain our documentation  to be up-to-date and ensure it maintains an ideal balance between abstraction and concrete details. 
• Implement new features in a test-first manner and expand test coverage for existing code. 
• Proactively  engage in refactoring of both architecture and code to reduce technical debt , aiming for an optimal developer experience. 
• Use Code Review as a  knowledge-sharing and problem-solving tool , as well as to improve code quality.  
• Develop new requirements incrementally, using feature branches or flags, to ship changes to production as quickly as possible. 

If you want even more opportunities to show the world what you can do, you’re in luck! When you're willing to do the hard work of learning and growing, then you’ll find virtually limitless opportunities with us. 

You Can Apply For, or Grow Into, Multiple Roles 

We’re searching for  multiple senior PHP/Laravel developers, some of them with a specialty:  

• Senior PHP/Laravel Developer 
• Senior PHP/Laravel Developer -  Security Specialist 
• Senior PHP/Laravel Developer -  DevOps and Cloud Specialist  
• Senior PHP/Laravel Developer -  Full-Stack 

Each of these positions shares the same core responsibilities of a Senior PHP/Laravel developer but with a unique focus on a different area of expertise.

DevOps and Cloud Specialist:

• Improve and maintain our infrastructure, enhancing  scalability, resiliency, and fault tolerance .  
• Enhance server provisioning using Terraform, Ansible, Bash scripts, and deployer tasks. 
• Utilize cloud infrastructure and services to  reduce cost and maintenance overhead , moving as much as possible to the cloud (IaaS and PaaS). 
• Analyze business requirements and design appropriate cloud-based systems and architectures.

Full-Stack:

• Implement  re-usable, fully tested UI Components using Web Components and the Blade template engine. 
• Utilize the IxDF Component Library to  implement UIs with the best look & feel . 
• Boost performance and responsiveness of existing and new pages, including enhancing Web Vitals. 
• Increase test coverage and improve code quality of the IxDF UI-Kit. 

Security Specialist:

• Perform and automate  security vulnerability assessments , including penetration testing and database scans and integrate them into our CI/CD pipeline (enlightn, Zap, etc.). 
• Inspect and implement missing security features in all layers of our stack, from code to tooling and infrastructure to  ensure security in depth . 
• Document security considerations and  hold training sessions , both for the technical and non-technical staff. 

About you

• You possess  expert knowledge in PHP and its frameworks, preferably Laravel. You're an expert in software design best practices and principles,  OOP ,  Design Patterns , and  SOLID principles . 
• You have a great understanding of  software engineering fundamentals , performance, data structure, and algorithms. 
• You’re an  engineer , not a coder or a frameworker. You embody an  engineer's mindset , always curious about the  mechanics behind the scenes . 
• You have mastered  the art of automated testing , especially unit tests. 
• You’re enthusiastic about  learning by doing and are committed to putting in the effort to continuously  improve your skills . 
• You speak and write  acceptable English – not perfect English, just acceptable – since you will be working with people from all around the world. 
• You value teamwork, prioritize collaboration, and focus on  collective goals and harmony in the workplace. 
• You’re  self-motivated and self-disciplined and thus work well in a flat hierarchy with lots of freedom. 
• You love to have creative freedom, make independent judgments, and  live up to the responsibility that comes with that freedom. 
• You’re driven by the desire to  make a positive impact in the world and to improve the lives of others. 
• You’re located in a time zone anywhere from  South America (UTC -5) and all the way to  East Asia (UTC+8), including  Europe (UTC+0). 

Bonus Points 

You get bonus points if you…

• have expertise in  TDD, DDD, Event Sourcing, and CQRS . 
• hold a  Master’s Degree in Computer Science. 
• possess strong skills in  database management , including scaling and optimization. 
• have experience with technologies such as  Stripe, Swoole, or Analytics tools. 
• have contributed to  open-source projects (you’ll join a team of Laravel/framework contributors). 
• have an  AWS certificate . 
• have experience with  Docker, Linux Servers, and DevOps . 
• consider yourself a  security expert/enthusiast . 

What we can offer

• A founder and CEO who is also a develope r, understanding your challenges and triumphs. 
• A  zero-effort development environment based on Docker, streamlining your workflow. 
• The opportunity to refine and develop  battle-tested guidelines for PHP and Laravel . 
• A team of Senior Developers with a commitment to writing  testable clean code . 
• Bi-weekly  knowledge-sharing  sessions and 3 meeting-free days weekly for focused work . 
• Access to  a comprehensive library of books and courses, ensuring your skills and knowledge remain at the forefront. 
• A  full-time position within a fully remote organization. Daily  video-based collaboration with your colleagues from elsewhere on the planet, and you'll get to meet up on team trips every year.
• A work culture with no  fluffy titles, political agendas and corporate drama . Your colleagues value  your warm character, your strong work ethic, and the results you deliver. Junior or senior, if you embody old-school virtues of always striving to deliver results, learn and become better every day, you'll thrive at the IxDF.
• A daily mission to help impact,  empower, and enrich the lives of millions of people by creating  affordable high-end design education for everyone across the planet. It'll be yours too.
• A company  where the distance between idea and execution is minimal. We're a highly agile organization with  zero bureaucracy or corporate politics – and with  exceptional order and efficiency .
• A company culture where passion meets high performance and excellence . To help us improve the world (and yourself in the process),  you'll need grit, strong work ethic, long-term thinking, and self-discipline .
• We thrive because we have a  hands-on attitude and a bias towards action as opposed to fluff-filled, unrealistic strategies. You'll need  crisp execution skills yourself and the ability to  impress your colleagues with concrete results , just like they'll impress you.

How to Learn More and Apply

To submit your application as well as learn more about our Work Culture and Values, please visit 

Please apply as soon as you can—we're firm believers in the adage “the sooner, the better”, and we look forward to working with you!

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