Ludus is a SaaS company that builds digital tools trusted by thousands of organizations of all sizes to power their event ticketing, marketing, fundraising, retail, and registration needs.

Role Description

As a Software Engineer, you’ll join our engineering team as a core contributor during an active migration from a legacy platform to Laravel. Our system runs on PHP, MySQL, Linux, Nginx, Docker, and the Laravel TALL stack. This role will balance refactoring existing code with building new, scalable solutions.

You’ll play a key role in improving the stability, performance, and maintainability of our application as the business grows. We’re looking for someone with strong web fundamentals, a curious mindset, and experience building and scaling web applications. Laravel experience is a plus, but not required.

This role is open to multiple experience levels, with compensation determined by experience and expertise.

Join us in our mission to bring people together through shared experiences and building digital tools for arts organizations.

Learn more about Ludus here

Things you should know before applying

At Ludus, our mission is to bring people together through shared experiences. It’s a big goal that allows for limitless expansion to make a difference in the world.

We move fast and are constantly learning and adapting. We embrace low process and high trust to navigate change and figure out what works.

We believe success is never final and when you think it is, that is when you fail. For us, success is a sum of small efforts, including trial and error, so we move at an unrelenting weekly pace.

In order to grow as a company and individually, discomfort is necessary so we can continue exploring new ideas and push ourselves to build quality tools to offer the best solutions for our customers.

If you prefer a hand-holding environment where everything is black and white, that’s not us. If you’re a self-starter and can thrive in controlled chaos, Ludus is the place for you — it’s time to find your role ⬇️

What you'll be doing

• Active Migration Participation: Collaborate with the team on migrating a legacy PHP application to Laravel, establishing sustainable architecture patterns, and supporting others in understanding and adopting new code structures.

• Build & Scale New Features: Develop new application features within the Laravel framework, focusing on creating secure, maintainable code.

• Maintain and Enhance Legacy Code: Assess and update the existing PHP codebase where necessary to improve performance, security, and functionality as we migrate.

• Team Collaboration: Act as a senior contributor and resource within the team, sharing expertise and supporting a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

• Infrastructure & Performance: Contribute to deployment automation, server configuration, and database optimization to keep our application fast, secure, and reliable.

Traits we're looking for

(In no certain order)

• Experience: 2+ years in building and maintaining web applications.

• Languages & Frameworks: Proficiency in web application frameworks/languages.

• Web Fundamentals: Strong understanding of front-end and back-end development, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and HTTP.

• Database Experience: Skills in MySQL or similar relational databases, including query optimization, schema design, and migration tools (e.g., Phinx, Artisan).

• System Design: Experience architecting scalable systems and designing solutions for long-term maintainability.

BONUS Qualifications:

• Experience with Stripe or other payment processing APIs.

• Strong experience with the Laravel Framework

• Strong experience with PHP

PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES:

• Collaborative & Communicative: Demonstrates the ability to work effectively within a team, showing humility and curiosity. Capable of translating complex technical concepts into clear, understandable language for non-technical stakeholders and less experienced developers.

• Pragmatic Problem Solver: Able to balance immediate needs with long-term scalability, making informed decisions that benefit both the project and the overall system.

• Attention to Detail: Exhibits a keen eye for detail, ensuring that code quality and system integrity are maintained, while also identifying potential issues before they escalate.

• Curiosity & Initiative: A lifelong learner with a proactive approach to problem-solving, always exploring new technologies and methodologies to enhance development processes and outcomes.

Perks

💪 Health Insurance (Medical, Vision, Dental) — Provided by Blue Cross Blue Shields and Guardian. Ludus covers 90% of the premium of our employees and 50% of all dependents.

💵 401(k) matching — Full match on the first 5% contribution and 50% match on the next 5% of contribution (7.5% contribution match by Ludus if you contribute 10%).

📈 Profit Sharing and Stock Options — We believe in sharing our success and offer annual profit-sharing bonuses during profitable years, along with stock options that give employees a stake in our long-term growth and success.

👓 Personal Wellness — $50 monthly reimbursement that can be used on anything personal wellness related.

🎫 Experience Credit — $100 yearly reimbursement toward concert tickets, theatre tickets, etc. to encourage shared experiences.

⛱ Flexible PTO — Take the time you need for vacation or personal days - simply work with your team to ensure everything runs smooth while you are away.

😷 Sick Days — If you're under the weather, we expect you to take the time needed to recover within reason. 

Role Details

• Salary Range: 100k-150k based on experience/expertise

• Core Business Hours: 9-5 EST with monthly rotating on call after hour requirements

• Location: Hybrid - Ada Monday and Wednesday in office.

• This position reports to: Engineering Manager