Backend Tech Lead

Investing your talent in creating a better world

We are searching for a Backend Tech Lead with strong programming expertise and proven team leadership experience. Collaborating closely with our full-stack development team, you will design and develop the backend architecture of our explorer.land platform, ensuring scalability, performance, and reliability. This role combines hands-on backend development (PHP/Laravel) with architectural leadership and operational responsibilities

Cornerstones

5+ years of professional experience in backend development and technical leadership.
Located in the EU or in a GDPR-compliant country (as recognized by the European Commission).
Part-time position, with the potential to evolve into a full-time role.
Potential start date: 1 September ’25

About us

At OpenForests, we are driven by a mission to foster a world where human and non-human beings flourish alongside each other, and where nature is respected, not merely exploited. We believe in creating a global community of regeneration and connectedness, underpinned by transparency and open communication. Our platform, explorer.land, is a crucial tool in achieving this vision, empowering project presentation and fostering connection with nature projects worldwide.

OpenForests operates as a fully remote company, with our team united by a shared passion for impact-focused work and a dedication to software craftsmanship. We are a small but mighty international team, committed to continuous improvement and knowledge-sharing.

Why Now
The way we interact with and support nature-based solutions is evolving. There’s a growing collective consciousness around environmental regeneration and the need for transparent, trustworthy platforms. OpenForests is uniquely positioned to be the orchestrating layer for this community, providing the tools for full disclosure and fostering genuine connections between people and nature projects. This demands a robust, scalable, and resilient backend that can support increasing data complexity, user interactions, and integration needs. As a Tech Lead, you will play a foundational role in defining this future, ensuring our platform can effectively serve a global community dedicated to positive environmental impact.

Useful links:

What you’ll do:

As a Tech Lead for our Backend team, you won’t just be writing code; you’ll be shaping the technical direction and fostering the growth of our backend services. We’re looking for an experienced engineer with a strong systems thinking mindset and a proven track record of leading and mentoring others. You’ll dive deep into architectural design, ensure the scalability and performance of our API systems, and guide the team in adopting best practices. Our backend stack primarily uses PHP and Laravel for our API systems, PostgreSQL and PostGIS for data storage , Elasticsearch for indexed search, and Redis for key/value storage. We leverage Docker for local development and GitHub Actions for CI/CD. While experience with our full stack is a plus, a strong understanding of robust backend architecture and leadership is paramount.

Tasks

(Ideally, but not all strictly required; Groups sorted by priority)

Technical Leadership & BE Team Coordination

Provide technical leadership and mentorship to the backend development team.
Coordinate development tasks, team workflows, and bug triage/fixes.
Lead and structure code review processes, ensuring code quality and adherence to clean code principles.
Define, uphold, and advocate for coding standards, development best practices, tech debt reduction, and refactoring.
Support strategic roadmap execution and communicate feasibility, ensuring alignment with cross-functional stakeholders (Frontend Tech Lead, Product Owner, QA, DevOps).
Collaborate closely with the frontend tech lead to coordinate the development roadmap and supervise live deployments.
Participate in recruiting, onboarding, and team-building processes for backend engineers.
Communicate technical challenges and solutions effectively to non-technical stakeholders and executive management.

Architecture, Design & Feature Development

Take ownership of the design and architecture of stable and scalable API systems (PHP, Laravel), supporting the growth of explorer.land.
Plan, design, and implement new features, contributing technical expertise and helping shape the platform’s future.
Research, evaluate, and document new technologies and methodologies; communicate findings to the team.
Contribute to new/improved API & DB architectures for feature improvements/extensions.
Participate in infrastructure and solution architecture discussions with DevOps and the solution architect team.
Integrate third-party services and coordinate optimization/performance tuning with developers.
Anticipate growth and proactively plan for scalability, capacity planning, and load balancing strategies.

Process Improvement & Quality Assurance

Drive continuous improvement and optimization of existing solutions.
Ensure technical documentation is complete, current, and accessible.
Coordinate and prioritize framework/library upgrades.
Regularly analyze performance metrics, identify bottlenecks, and implement optimizations at the database, API, and application levels.

DevOps, Operations & Monitoring

Oversee and manage DevOps processes, including CI/CD pipelines (using Docker, GitHub Actions, etc.).
Automate deployments, rollbacks, and internal changelogs.
Together with the frontend tech lead, supervise live deployments and ensure smooth delivery to production.
Set up and manage monitoring, logging, and alerting strategies to proactively handle system stability issues.
Coordinate and manage incident responses, conduct root cause analyses, and plan follow-up mitigations.
Contribute technical perspective to budget planning regarding tooling, infrastructure, and resource allocation.

Security & Compliance

Responsible for establishing and guaranteeing API/data layer security.

Our Tech Stack:

PHP and Laravel for our API systems
PostgreSQL for persistent data storage
PostGIS for spatial data
Elasticsearch for indexed search
Redis for key/value storage
Docker for local development
GitHub Actions for CI/CD
PaaS cloud solutions for production environments
AWS S3 and Lambda@Edge for asset handling

We’d love to hear from you if you:

Have at least 5+ years of development experience with PHP and Laravel.
Possess a strong background in building robust, scalable APIs and backend systems.
Have experience building and maintaining large-scale applications.
Are well-versed in architecture and business logic, with a holistic view of systems.
Have significant experience with Docker, CI/CD pipelines, and modern DevOps practices.
Have a strong understanding of API and data security best practices.
Are proficient in written and spoken English, enabling effective communication with the team and stakeholders.
Enjoy mentoring and guiding developers, fostering a culture of quality, learning, and collaboration.
Strive for clean, maintainable code while balancing practicality and business needs.
Enjoy collaborating with technical and non-technical team members.
Proactively seek opportunities to improve code, processes, and system performance.
Demonstrate a deep understanding of the development lifecycle — from design to deployment, maintenance, monitoring, and day-to-day operations.
Take pride in your work and strive for excellence in what you build.

Start date (tentative): 1. September 2025

Note to agencies: As we directly work with individuals, we will not review nor reply to application coming from agencies. Thank you for your understanding.

Application process

Make sure you have read our working philosophy and conditions, before you proceed.
Fill in and submit the following form. We will get back to you within four weeks.
Within our form, briefly describe two projects you worked on before, what challenges you faced and how you overcame them.
If your profile sounds interesting, we will invite you to a 1-hour video call to get to know each other better.
In case both parties perceive a potential match, we will plan for a joint assignment as an opportunity to work together, paid, and over a defined period of time.
Should both parties be satisfied and inspired by this joint work period, we will formalize a regular work relation.

Backend Tech Lead (remote)