Reports to: Founder
Title: Lead Engineer and Solutions Architect
Direct Reports: Software Engineers, QA Engineer Location: Melbourne, Australia
Employment Type: Full-time
About Giftbee
Giftbee is seeking an experienced Lead Engineer and Solutions Architect to help scale our growing fintech platform. This role offers the opportunity to lead a high-performing engineering team, shape the technical roadmap, and build secure, cloud-native payment and rewards infrastructure used by enterprise clients across international markets
Giftbee operates a multi-tenant SaaS fintech platform built on an event-driven, queue-based architecture, supporting high-volume transaction processing across multiple international markets.
Position Purpose
The Lead Engineer and Solutions Architect is responsible for the design, architecture, and technical delivery of Giftbee’s platform. The role leads the engineering function, owns the technical roadmap, and ensures the platform meets the performance, security, and scalability requirements of Giftbee’s enterprise clients and regulated payments environment. The position requires deep technical expertise in Giftbee’s specific technology stack, including its PHP and Laravel backend services, Pimcore-based content and product information management system, and AWS cloud-native infrastructure.
Key Responsibilities
1. Research, design, and develop the architecture of Giftbee’s multi-tenant SaaS gift card and incentives platform, including the core transaction engine, PHP and Laravel backend services, and Pimcore-based content and product management layer.
2. Lead development, optimisation, and ongoing maintenance of Giftbee’s PHP and Laravel codebase, including refactoring legacy components, improving performance, and ensuring code quality across the engineering team.
3. Architect and extend Giftbee’s Pimcore implementation, including custom data models, workflow configuration, API integration, and management of the product catalogue across multiple international markets.
4. Design and maintain Giftbee’s event-driven, queue-based architecture on AWS, including services such as Lambda, SQS, S3, and Secrets Manager, ensuring reliability, scalability, and cost efficiency.
5. Evaluate, recommend, and implement software solutions, frameworks, and third-party integrations including payment processors, gift card supply APIs (Tillo), accounting platforms (Xero), and CRM systems (HubSpot).
6. Develop and maintain technical specifications, system architecture documentation, and integration designs for new product features and client onboarding workflows.
7. Lead the engineering team, allocating work across software engineers and QA, conducting code reviews, and mentoring team members on PHP and Laravel development standards, Pimcore best practice, and overall technical quality.
8. Design and oversee implementation of security controls, including remediation of penetration test findings and ongoing compliance with payment industry security requirements.
9. Architect and deliver API integrations with external partners and clients, ensuring reliability, scalability, and adherence to data protection requirements across multiple international markets.
10. Identify, diagnose, and resolve complex technical issues across the platform, including production incidents, performance bottlenecks, and integration failures within the PHP, Laravel, Pimcore, and AWS environments.
11. Collaborate with the CEO and senior stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical solutions and roadmap priorities.
12. Establish and enforce software development standards, deployment processes, and quality assurance practices across the engineering team.
13. Drive integration of AI tooling and agentic workflows into Giftbee’s platform and internal engineering practice, aligned with the company’s product roadmap and strategic direction.
14. Monitor emerging technologies and industry developments relevant to fintech, payments, gift card infrastructure, PHP and Laravel frameworks, the Pimcore ecosystem, and cloud-native architecture, and advise on adoption.
Skills and Experience Required
Essential:
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related discipline
• Minimum 5 years’ experience in software engineering, with at least 2 years in a lead, architect, or senior technical role
• Deep, demonstrable expertise in PHP development, including modern PHP frameworks, object-oriented design, and performance optimisation of large PHP codebases
• Substantial hands-on experience with Laravel (current version preferred), including service architecture, queue-based processing, and API development
• Substantial hands-on experience architecting, customising, and maintaining production Pimcore implementations, including custom data models, workflow management, and Pimcore API development
• Demonstrated experience designing and operating production systems on AWS, including Lambda, SQS, S3, and Secrets Manager
• Strong experience with MySQL, Redis, and Docker in production environments
• Demonstrated experience designing and delivering production fintech, payments, or e-commerce platforms
• Proven experience integrating third-party payment, gift card, or financial services APIs
• Experience leading and mentoring engineering teams
• Strong understanding of application security, secure coding practice, and penetration test remediation
Desirable:
• Experience with Next.js, React, and TypeScript for customer-facing applications
• Experience with serverless PHP runtimes such as Bref
• Experience with gift card, incentives, or rewards platforms
• Experience working with regulated financial services or payments infrastructure
• Familiarity with Australian payments ecosystem (EFTPOS, BECS, NPP)
• Pimcore certification or contributions to the Pimcore community
• Experience integrating AI tooling, LLM APIs, or agentic workflows into production systems
