Senior Backend Developer – PHP / Laravel

UsedBookR.com

Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India

Company: UsedBookR.com

Location: Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

Work Mode: Hybrid / Remote — approximately 3 days per month from our Coimbatore office

Experience: 5–8 years

Salary: ₹40,000 – ₹70,000 per month

Employment Type: Full-time

About UsedBookR

UsedBookR.com is a growing e-commerce and retail business focused on buying and selling new and pre-loved books.

Our technology supports multiple areas of the business, including e-commerce, inventory, purchasing, buyback, warehouse operations, orders, payments, shipping, promotions and reporting.

We are looking for an experienced Senior Backend Developer – PHP/Laravel who can take ownership of our existing software and help us build, improve and maintain our technology platform.

This is a hands-on role. We are looking for someone who can understand a business requirement, investigate the existing system, develop the solution, test it, troubleshoot issues and take ownership through deployment and maintenance.

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Role & Responsibilities

Backend Development

Develop, maintain and enhance applications using PHP and Laravel

Build and maintain REST APIs and backend services

Develop business logic and complex application workflows

Work with an existing production codebase and understand its architecture

Write clean, maintainable and scalable code

Implement authentication, authorization and role-based access

Develop cron jobs, queues, background processes and automated workflows

Integrate third-party APIs and services

Database & Performance

Work extensively with MySQL

Design and maintain database structures

Write efficient and optimized SQL queries

Identify and resolve slow database queries

Optimize indexes and database operations

Investigate slow APIs and application pages

Improve application performance and reliability

Handle data consistency and transaction-related issues

E-commerce & Business Systems

You will work on real business workflows involving:

Product and book catalog

Inventory management

Order management

Buyback and purchasing workflows

Customer and seller management

Warehouse operations

Payment processing and refunds

Coupons and discounts

Shipping and delivery

Sales reporting

Third-party and marketplace integrations

You should be interested in understanding the business process behind the software, not just implementing individual coding tasks.

Debugging & Production Support

Investigate and resolve application bugs

Reproduce issues and identify their root cause

Debug production problems systematically

Fix performance issues

Analyze logs, database queries and API behavior

Implement permanent solutions rather than temporary workarounds

Test fixes before deployment

Identify recurring problems and improve the system to prevent them

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Ownership

We are looking for someone who can take ownership of a feature or problem from:

Requirement → Analysis → Technical Solution → Development → Testing → Deployment → Maintenance

You will work directly with the founder/business team.

Requirements may not always come in the form of detailed technical specifications. You should be comfortable:

Asking the right questions

Understanding the actual business requirement

Identifying edge cases

Suggesting better technical approaches

Making appropriate technical decisions

Taking responsibility for the final outcome

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Working With Our Technical Partners

We have external technical partners who can support frontend development and server/infrastructure-related requirements.

You will be expected to coordinate with them whenever required.

You should be able to understand the overall application architecture and communicate effectively with frontend/infrastructure teams.

Advanced frontend expertise is not required for this position.

However, you should have enough frontend knowledge to understand API integration, browser errors, Network/Console issues and basic frontend/backend interaction.

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Required Skills

Essential

5–8 years of professional software development experience

Strong hands-on experience with PHP

Strong hands-on experience with Laravel

Strong knowledge of MySQL

Strong REST API development experience

Good understanding of backend architecture

Strong SQL and database optimization skills

Experience debugging real-world production applications

Experience with third-party API integrations

Good Git/GitHub/GitLab experience

Strong problem-solving ability

Ability to work independently

Ability to understand and translate business requirements into technical solutions

Good to Have

E-commerce development experience

Payment gateway integration

Razorpay / Stripe or similar payment systems

Shipping and logistics API integrations

Inventory management systems

Order management systems

Marketplace integrations

Redis

Queues and background jobs

AWS or other cloud platforms

Linux/server fundamentals

JavaScript/React knowledge

Experience working with external development teams

Experience using AI-assisted development tools

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What We Are Looking For

We are looking for a developer who can go beyond:

> “Tell me what to code.”

We want someone who can approach a problem like:

> “I understand the problem. Let me investigate the existing system, identify the root cause and determine the best solution.”

The right candidate should be:

Technically strong

Good at debugging

Strong with databases

Comfortable working with an existing codebase

Good at understanding complex workflows

Comfortable making technical decisions

Able to work independently

Comfortable communicating directly with business stakeholders

Willing to take ownership of outcomes

Willing to learn new technologies

Comfortable using AI tools while understanding and verifying the resulting code

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Technical Assessment

Candidates may be required to complete a practical technical assessment as part of the selection process.

The assessment may involve a realistic problem such as:

A slow API

Database performance issue

Existing application bug

Incorrect business workflow

Inventory/order-related problem

Candidates may use AI tools, documentation and Google during the assessment.

We are interested in understanding how you solve problems, not simply how much information you can recall.

The expected approach is:

Reproduce → Investigate → Identify Root Cause → Fix → Test → Verify

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Who Should Apply?

This position is suitable for experienced:

Senior PHP Developers

Senior Laravel Developers

PHP Backend Developers

Laravel Backend Developers

Backend Software Engineers

PHP Software Engineers

Candidates with experience in e-commerce, ERP, inventory, logistics, payment systems, order management or other business applications will be particularly relevant.

Please do not apply if:

Your PHP/Laravel experience is primarily basic or academic

Your primary strength is frontend development

You require detailed instructions for every task

You have limited MySQL/database experience

You have limited experience debugging production applications

You are uncomfortable working with an existing codebase

You have only theoretical API knowledge

You are looking primarily for a React/frontend position

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Why Join UsedBookR?

Work directly with the founder and business team

Work on a live e-commerce business

Solve real problems involving inventory, orders, payments and logistics

Work with a growing technology platform

Have meaningful influence over technical solutions

Take ownership of important parts of the application

Flexible hybrid/remote working arrangement

Opportunity to grow into a larger technical ownership role

Use modern AI-assisted development tools

Work on meaningful product and business problems rather than only repetitive coding tasks

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Compensation & Work Arrangement

Salary: ₹40,000 – ₹70,000 per month, depending on experience, technical capability and interview performance.

Experience: 5–8 years

Work Mode: Primarily remote, with approximately 3 days per month from our Coimbatore office

Employment Type: Full-time

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