PHP Software Engineer II
Ultimate.ai
Kraków, Poland
Job Description
Join us at Zendesk, where we're on a mission to power exceptional service for every person on the planet. We're accelerating that ambition by building products rooted in AI, automation, and intelligent customer experiences, because behind every interaction lies an opportunity to make a human connection.
We’re seeking a Software Engineer II with experience in PHP to join Workforce Management product team - Zendesk’s AI-powered solution for forecasting, scheduling, and agent performance tracking. In this role you’ll design and deliver scalable backend systems that power features used by thousands of customers and millions of end users, helping organizations optimize workforce efficiency through reliable, data-driven automation.
What you’ll be doing
Write, test, review, and maintain high-quality PHP code and services used by millions worldwide.
Deliver end-to-end work across the SDLC: design, implement, test, deploy, and operate features and services.
Lead squad-level initiatives and collaborate with product, ops, and customer-facing teams to translate requirements into robust solutions.
Drive technical decision-making for your area: design APIs, event schemas, and data models; identify tradeoffs and recommend solutions.
Tackle technical debt and refactor complex components; break large problems into manageable deliverables.
Monitor, profile, and optimize system performance, scalability, reliability, and cost.
Mentor and provide actionable feedback through code reviews; participate in hiring to grow the team.
Contribute to documentation, runbooks, and on-call practices to improve operational reliability.
What you bring to the role
3+ years of professional experience building production services in PHP (Laravel or similar frameworks).
Good practical experience with Docker, CI/CD pipelines, and deploying services on cloud platforms (AWS preferred).
Knowledge of relational databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and writing performant queries; experience with unit and integration testing (PHPUnit, Codeception).
Familiarity with RESTful APIs and event-driven architectures; comfortable designing for eventual consistency, retries, and failure modes.
Experience with observability and performance tools; comfortable interpreting metrics and logs to drive improvements.
Clear and empathetic communicator who can partner across engineering, product, and support teams.
Growth mindset: you enjoy learning new technologies and implementing them.
Preferred qualifications
Experience building event-driven systems and/or using Kafka in production.
Experience with ClickHouse, Swoole, or Laravel Octane is a plus.
Prior experience working in agile squads and contributing to technical strategy and architecture.
Background in performance tuning and capacity planning for high-throughput services.
Our tech stack
Backend: Go, PHP, Laravel
Frontend: JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Redux
Data & APIs: PostgreSQL, MySQL, ClickHouse, Kafka, Redis, REST, GraphQL Cloud & Infra: AWS, Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes, Spinnaker
Monitoring & Observability: Datadog, Sentry
What You’ll Get from Us
The opportunity to grow by tackling challenging problems and driving high-impact software initiatives.
Collaboration with a team of passionate individuals who enjoy what they do and are always willing to help.
Freedom to innovate – bring your ideas, experiment, and make a real impact.
A global, collaborative work environment where you can connect with amazing people worldwide.
... and all the benefits to support your well-being and work-life balance:
Flexible working hours and flexible, hybrid environment (we work two days per week from our amazing Kraków office).
Extended Stay Program (you can work up to 90 days outside of your country of jurisdiction).
Employment Contract with Competitive Salary and IP Tax Relief.
Professional Development Funds and internal training to help you develop new skills and grow your career.
Premium medical insurance (including dental & physiotherapy) plus private life insurance.
Well-being package (incl. Employee Assistance Program and Mental Health Support as well as Additional Days Off).
Family-Forming support: 16 weeks of paid paternity leave and inclusive fertility and hormonal health benefits via Carrot Fertility.
Competitive benefits package designed to support your lifestyle - including access to MyBenefit platform with multiple MultiSport Card Options.
Long-Term Incentives: LTIP Bonus as well as Recharge Leave - 4 weeks of paid leave following 5 years of continuous service.
… and all the in-office perks such as lunches, massage sessions, specialty coffee etc.
Hybrid: In this role, our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection, collaboration, learning, and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.
The intelligent heart of customer experience
Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.
Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.
As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.
Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.
Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to peopleandplaces@zendesk.com with your specific accommodation request.
