Product Engineer, Backend at Kinship (London, United Kingdom)
Kinship· London, United Kingdom·
Role details
Competitive Salary · Work-Life Balance
Summary
Kinship is seeking a Backend Engineer to build and maintain modern PHP services, design resilient APIs, and manage AWS infrastructure. The role involves collaborating with product and design teams to ship reliable software while ensuring system performance and security.
Job description
CRAFTING THE KIND OF BACKEND THAT MAKES FRONTEND WORK FEEL LIKE CHEATING
HEY THERE — WE’RE KINSHIP 👋
We’re building the Revit tools you wish existed. Our platform helps architects and engineers manage content, track usage, and make smarter decisions with less hassle.
We’re looking for a backend-focused engineer who enjoys building clean APIs, designing resilient systems, and keeping things fast, simple, and secure. Someone who’s comfortable working in PHP, knows their way around Docker, and can help us make the most of AWS to ship reliable software at speed.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
- Build and maintain backend services in modern PHP
- Design and implement APIs consumed by our frontend and desktop apps
- Use Docker to standardize development and streamline deployments
- Work with AWS services (e.g. ECS, S3, RDS, CloudWatch) to keep our systems fast and reliable
- Collaborate with product, design, and other engineers to ship features
- Write tests and monitor performance so we can trust our stack at scale
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
You don’t need to tick every box, but here’s what would help you succeed:
- Strong experience with PHP (we use PHP 8+)
- Familiarity with containerized environments using Docker
- Product mindset — you think in terms of user value, not just technical correctness
- Clear communicator and thoughtful collaborator
- Someone who’s excited to work in a small, fast-moving team
- Knowledge of Laravel or Symfony
- Comfortable with AWS basics — think deploying apps, storing files, managing databases
- Experience designing or evolving APIs in production
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines
- Interest in DevOps, observability, or developer tooling
WHAT WE OFFER
- Competitive salary
- A beautiful, plant-filled office in central London (by Southwark tube station) and good coffee (obviously)
- A no-BS team of people who love building great software together
- Real autonomy and influence over product and tech decisions
- A company that believes in work-life balance
Why work at Kinship
- Culture: Small, ambitious team (≈12 people) with a “people over process” ethos. In-person collaboration is encouraged – London office is the hub, with remote team members across time zones.
- Policy: In-office focused for London-based roles; hybrid flexibility for team members in other locations.
- Perks: Good coffee, fast-moving ideas, meaningful impact on real-world building design tools.
- Engineering Culture: Opportunity to shape the product from the ground up; stack includes C#/.NET, frontend (likely modern JS/TS), and backend work. Open roles: Product Engineer (Backend, Frontend, C#/.NET), Design Engineer, Revit Content Specialist, Marketing Lead.