PHP Developer

StarApps Studio is a product-driven SaaS company building Shopify apps that power thousands of online stores. We’ve developed 6 highly-rated Shopify apps (averaging 4.9★) used by 30,000+ Shopify merchants worldwide, including over 1,000 Shopify Plus stores. In just a few years, our bootstrapped team grew from $5.5M to $10M in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) by obsessing over quality and merchant success. We’re a tight-knit, 20-person team based in Baner, Pune, on a mission to help e-commerce brands create world-class shopping experiences.

Role Overview

We are looking for a Full Stack Developer who will own features end-to-end with an emphasis on backend excellence. In this role, you will design and optimize complex data models and API architectures in Ruby on Rails, implement robust background job queues (e.g. delayed_job) for heavy workloads, and perform rigorous performance tuning to ensure our systems scale. On the frontend, you'll build and integrate React components to deliver complete, user-friendly features. This is a role for someone who loves tackling deep technical challenges in the backend while also crafting intuitive user interfaces – an opportunity to leverage your backend expertise while driving full-stack product ownership.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect & Optimize Backend: Design scalable database schemas and efficient data models. Develop high-performance RESTful APIs and services in Ruby on Rails, ensuring clean, maintainable code and great performance.
• Backend API Development: Design, implement, and maintain robust backend services and RESTful APIs in Ruby on Rails to support new features and internal tools.
• End-to-End Performance Tuning: Optimize application performance across the stack – from minimizing frontend load times to improving backend query efficiency – for our high-traffic, data-intensive apps.
• Collaboration & Agile Delivery: Work closely with designers, product managers, and QA to translate requirements into technical solutions. Participate in sprint planning, code reviews, and daily deployments to ship features continuously and reliably.
• Quality & Maintenance: Write clean, maintainable code with appropriate test coverage (unit and integration tests) to ensure reliability. Monitor, debug, and resolve issues in production, and continually refactor and improve existing code for stability and performance

What We’re Looking For (Requirements)

• 4–8 Years Experience: Proven experience as a software developer in a product company (experience in e-commerce or SaaS is highly preferred). You have built real products used by actual customers at scale.
• Ruby on Rails Expertise: Strong command of Ruby on Rails. Experience designing RESTful APIs, working with MVC architecture, and using Rails best practices. You should understand how to structure large Rails applications for maintainability.
• Backend Proficiency: Comfortable building server-side applications and APIs with Ruby on Rails. You can implement business logic, integrate with databases, and create RESTful endpoints (bonus if you’ve worked with GraphQL or other backend frameworks).
• Database Skills: Proficiency with PostgreSQL (or similar RDBMS). Capable of writing complex SQL queries, optimizing queries/indexes, and designing efficient relational schemas. Familiarity with Redis or caching strategies is a plus.
• Front-End Proficiency: Comfortable building user interfaces with React and modern JavaScript/TypeScript. Able to implement frontend components that consume APIs and provide a smooth user experience.
• System Design & Quality: Solid understanding of web application architecture, performance tuning, and scalability concerns. Experience with profiling, benchmarking, and optimizing web applications. Commitment to writing clean, maintainable code with proper tests.
• Product Mindset: You care about the why behind the features. You are comfortable digging into requirements, questioning assumptions, and ensuring that we build solutions that truly solve merchant problems.
• Adaptability & Collaboration: Excellent problem-solving skills, communication, and ability to work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment. You are a self-starter who can take ownership of tasks and drive them to completion, but also know when to ask for help.

Tech Stack

• Frontend: React, TypeScript/JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3 (Tailwind/Bootstrap), modern build tools (Webpack, Babel).
• Backend: Ruby on Rails (REST APIs, background jobs), some services in Python.
• Database: PostgreSQL.
• Cloud & DevOps: Amazon Web Services (EC2, S3, RDS, CloudFront), Docker, CI/CD for daily deployments.
• Tools: Git (GitHub), Agile issue tracking (JIRA/Trello), and a keen use of automated testing.

(Don’t worry if you aren’t familiar with every item – we value willingness to learn. This is our current stack, and we continually adopt new technologies that improve our products.)

Why Join Us

• High Impact & Ownership: Your work will directly enhance the shopping experience of 50M+ shoppers daily. At StarApps, developers deploy code daily and see the immediate impact on thousands of merchants – you’ll own projects end-to-end and build features that matter.
• Fast-Growing, Profitable Startup: Join a bootstrapped, profitable company on an exciting growth trajectory (from $4M to $10M ARR). There’s no bureaucracy here – just a passionate team obsessed with product quality and merchant happiness. You’ll be part of our core team as we scale, with ample opportunities to grow into leadership roles.
• Cutting-Edge Tech & Challenges: Work with modern technologies (React, Rails, AWS) on performance-intensive applications. Tackle complex challenges in scaling, optimization, and UX for a global user base – continuously sharpen your skills in a supportive, learning-focused environment.
• Collaborative Culture: We are a small 25-person team that operates like a close-knit family. You’ll work side by side with experienced founders and a talented team that values innovation, humility, and continuous improvement. Our culture is open, empathetic, and growth-oriented – every voice is heard, and every team member plays a crucial role in our success.

Growth & Benefits: We invest in our team’s growth. Expect a competitive salary, performance bonuses, and whatever tools you need to do your best work. We sponsor professional development (courses, conferences, books) and encourage knowledge-sharing. You’ll enjoy a flexible leave policy, team off-sites, and the excitement of building a global product from our new office in Baner, Pune.

Experience • 1-3 years

Skill to Test

• Java EE (Servlets, JSTL, JSP, JDBC)

• ReactJS

Primary Skills

• Java EE (Servlets, JSTL, JSP, JDBC)

• Frontend frameworks (ReactJS and/or Angular)

• Pure JavaScript, jQuery

• Bootstrap, HTML5, CSS, SASS

Secondary Skills (nice to have)

• Passionate about implementing UX\UI of web applications

• Microsoft SQL Server (writing optimized queries, stored procedures, triggers etc.)

• API Design (REST, JAX-RS)

• Understanding Apache Tomcat configuration and deployment of web applications

• Understanding of browser technologies and limitations

• Authentication and Authorization (SAML, OAuth, OpenID, Okta)

2

Soft Skills

• Thrives collaborating in a team environment with a diverse range of people

• Passionate about delivering an amazing customer experience

• Able to have a change of mind, and able to change the minds of others

• Writes clearly and concisely

• Capable of working without a company office, with a fully remote team

Growth Skills

• Possesses a good work ethic; a self-starter with a desire to grow

• Always looking for better ways to get the job done

1. Proven experience as a Laravel Developer with a strong portfolio of past projects.
2. In-depth knowledge of Laravel, PHP, and MySQL.
3. Experience with front-end technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery.
4. Familiarity with version control systems (e.g., Git).
5. Understanding of RESTful API development and consumption.
6. Strong problem-solving and communication skills.
7. Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment.
8. Attention to detail and a commitment to delivering high-quality solutions.
9. Experience with testing frameworks (e.g., PHPUnit) is a plus.
10. Knowledge of other PHP frameworks and CMS (e.g., Symfony, CodeIgniter, WordPress) is a plus.

We are looking for a experienced engineer with superb technical skills. You will primarily be responsible for architecting and building large scale systems that delivers AI and Analytical solutions to our customers. The right candidate will enthusiastically take ownership in developing and managing a continuously improving, robust, scalable software solutions. The successful candidate will be curious, creative, ambitious, self motivated, flexible, and have a bias towards taking action. As part of the early engineering team, you will have a chance to make a measurable impact as well as having a significant amount of responsibility.

Although your primary responsibilities will be around back-end work, we prize individuals who are willing to step in and contribute to other areas including automation, tooling, and management applications. Experience with or desire to learn Machine Learning a plus.