Head of engineering / CTO (PHP)

Role Overview

We’re looking for a senior, hands-on technical leader who will take full ownership of our internal technology and actively drive how technology helps scale the business. It is a builder’s role for someone who combines product thinking with strong execution and initiative.
You will act as the primary technical owner of our systems, proactively identify opportunities, propose what should be built, and personally lead implementation. You won’t be waiting for tickets - you’ll be shaping the roadmap together with the CEO and turning ideas into working production systems.
A core expectation is initiative: researching tools, identifying leverage points, and bringing clear, business-driven technical proposals - then owning delivery end-to-end.

Required Experience
- 8+ years of professional experience in software engineering.
- 3+ years as a senior or lead developer / Head of Engineering–level contributor
- Strong hands-on experience with PHP
- Comfortable working in US timezone
- Proven experience integrating or building with AI tools and APIs
- Actively uses AI tools to improve personal productivity and development workflow
- Has been the go-to technical owner on a small team
- Experience in one or more of the following:
- De-facto CTO or technical owner in a small company
- Senior tech lead ready for broader ownership and business impact
- Experience scaling a product, platform, or agency environment
- Involved in product and system strategy - not just ticket execution
- Comfortable working directly with CEO, marketing, and finance stakeholders

What You’ll Do
- Own and evolve the current technology stack (PHP, MySQL, AWS)
- Serve as the primary technical owner of internal tools and platforms
- Design, build, and ship production software yourself
- Proactively identify opportunities where technology can:
- Improve lead generation and monetization
- Increase operational efficiency
- Create internal leverage and new capabilities
- Research tools, platforms, and architectures and recommend what to adopt
- Present clear, well-reasoned build proposals to the CEO, including expected business impact
- Participate in product and platform strategy with leadership
- Lead a small engineering setup (currently one developer)
- Set technical standards, architecture direction, and best practices
- Decide what should be built in-house vs outsourced
- Ensure systems are maintainable, documented, and scalable
- Drive practical AI adoption and AI integrations where useful