Senior PHP Engineer

Who we are

At Help Scout, we’re on a mission to help businesses delight more customers. We’ve been on this journey since 2011, and today more than 12,000 companies use our platform to provide outstanding customer support. We’ve been fully remote from the beginning, and have a team of 140+ people all over the world.

We love crafting beautiful products and growing a business together, but we're also trying to do something bigger. We're building a company that brings out your best and leaves the world a better place — a company that seeks balance between profit and purpose. That's why we've been a Certified B Corporation since 2019 and have pledged 1% of our equity back to the community.

Help Scout’s success hinges on hiring talented, high-accountability people who want to be part of creating a culture where we all feel challenged and supported to do our best work. We hope that excites you to join us! 

Company values

Happy to Help

Help is our first name. We show up for others, not because we have to, but because we want to. We share knowledge and give freely by default, and operate with generosity and empathy for each other, our customers, and our community. After all, there is no I in team (or software).

Craft over Convention

Although it’s tempting to follow a well-worn path, we push ourselves to run beyond it — even when that sets us apart from our peers. We’re building a culture where it’s safe to be ambitious and hold each other to high standards. That’s why we obsess over the last 10%, because it shows up for our customers and the business in powerful ways.

Progress not Perfection

The work of building a product, culture, and brand is never done – we ship our best effort, listen, iterate, then repeat. Seeking progress requires the vulnerability to be curious, humble, and hungry to learn. Great ideas can come from anywhere, so we share our work openly, welcome the perspective of others, and continuously search for what can be improved.

Own the Outcome 

Ownership is key to our collective success. We consider the impact on our team and our community before we act, and believe that trust and integrity are non-negotiable. To create a better future, our decisions are made with stakeholders today and ten years from now in mind.

Read more about how we define, share, and live these values here. 

Your Impact

As a Senior PHP Engineer, you’ll drive critical backend systems that power our web app—from customer-facing features to behind-the-scenes tooling. You’ll work alongside senior engineers, designers, and product folks to build secure, scalable, and elegant solutions that enable customer service teams around the world to do their best work.

The Team

The Engineering team sits alongside Product and Design as part of our Experience Organization at Help Scout. You will report to our PHP Engineering Manager, and will be part of the Engineering team led by our VP of Product Engineering, Luis Morales.

About the Role

Help Scout has run on PHP since we started in 2011. As a PHP Engineer here at Help Scout, you will:

• Develop new functionality, enhance backend systems, and support third-party integrations using modern PHP frameworks and AWS services.

• Collaborate with frontend engineers on Javascript features, Backend and platform teams working on Java and Kotlin, and ensure seamless API design and integration.

• Improve performance, reliability, and maintainability across systems using Redis, RabbitMQ, Kafka, MySQL/PostgreSQL, and MongoDB.

• Triage and resolve engineering support requests, learning directly from real-world usage and turning pain points into product improvements.

• Write well-tested, maintainable code and contribute to our automated testing pipelines; you understand when and how to supplement with thoughtful manual testing.

• Keep the customer in focus for all your work. Every decision reflects a commitment to performance, security, and the experience of end users.

• Work cross-functionally in a tight-knit, senior team that values psychological safety and mutual respect.

• Share what you know, learn from your peers, and help foster a culture of technical growth and curiosity.

About You

• You’ve built and scaled modern PHP-based applications using frameworks like Laravel, Symfony, or similar, and you follow current best practices (even if you occasionally challenge them).

• You understand database design, caching, messaging queues, and architecture for high-scale SaaS.

• You’re not a UI specialist, but you’re comfortable integrating with frontend technologies (React, Redux, Next.js).

• Your work is clean, consistent, and approachable by others—your future self included.

• You practice TDD or similar strategies, and think critically about what tests to write and how to validate your work.

• You think beyond the code, caring deeply about the “why” behind the work and how it helps customers.

• You communicate clearly and proactively, whether writing up technical decisions or discussing roadblocks.

Perks & Benefits

Help Scout offers a variety of perks and benefits to support you and your family. Our offerings include healthcare coverage, wellness resources, and so much more. Visit our careers page to learn more.

Hiring Guidelines: 

All of our roles are remote, however, some roles may carry specific location-based eligibility requirements. Additionally, because Help Scout is a fully remote company and we hire from many countries, we do not sponsor visas. Help Scout teammates need to be authorized to work from their home location. 

For our Sales roles, we are only able to hire in the United States.

For other roles, we are only able to hire in the following countries: United States, Canada, Australia, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom, Denmark, Italy, Spain and Norway.

We’re working on expanding this list. Our Talent Acquisition team can help answer any questions about location after starting the recruiting process.

We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to building a company that embraces and celebrates diversity and inclusion. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We have read the studies and understand that diverse teams build better products, bring more perspective to the table, contribute to a company’s financial success, and help foster a more inclusive environment for all employees, but the bottom line is that it's the right thing to do.

To provide you with the best experience, we can support you with accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. Simply inform our recruitment team during your conversation with them.

A note on the use of AI in our interview process

While we understand that AI in an important tool in a modern skillset, we ask that you do not utilize AI assistants live on our interviews. Of course, use any tools you need to prepare! But we'd like for you to have a real human-to-human conversation with our team.

On our end, we utilize a platform called Brighthire as a notetaker and review tool to ensure a fair and transparent hiring process.

About Help Scout

We're on a mission to help businesses delight more customers. We love crafting beautiful products and resources to solve that challenge, but we're also trying to do something bigger. We're trying to build a company that brings out your best and leaves the world a better place — a company that seeks balance between profit and purpose. That's why we've been a Certified B Corporation since 2019, have pledged 1% of our equity back to the community, and have been remote since day one, now with 140+ people in 115 cities worldwide.

To learn more about who we are, visit the About page.