Lead Full Stack Developer (PHP/React & AWS DevOps)

Location: Cape Town (Office-Based) | Travel: Initial onboarding and training in the UK, with

occasional travel thereafter.

NicheCom is looking for a hands-on Lead Developer to join our Cape Town team and take ownership of our core technology. As a key early hire, you'll work independently collaborating with UK leads to build and scale our technical foundations. If you are a builder and a leader who thrives on autonomy and impact, we want to hear from you.

What You'll Own & Build

• Core Application: Lead the development of our flagship web application (Laravel + React),

the platform at the very core of our business.

• AWS Infrastructure: Manage, automate, and optimise our entire AWS environment,

including CI/CD pipelines, security, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.

• Technical Leadership: Set code quality standards, lead architectural decisions, maintain

documentation, and collaborate with the UK team on product and technical strategy.

• Founding Developer: As the first developer in our Cape Town office, you will set the

standard for technical excellence and innovation.

• Key Projects: In your first few months, you'll spearhead a key initiative, such as driving

significant cost-savings by optimising database performance to right-size our RDS

infrastructure.

Your Experience & Skills

• Leadership: Proven experience owning technical projects, either solo or in a small team.

• Backend & Frontend: Deep knowledge of PHP & Laravel (or equivalent like Python/Django)

and a strong command of React & Redux.

• Comprehensive AWS DevOps: Expertise in Infrastructure as Code

(Terraform/CloudFormation), CI/CD, and implementing best practices for security (IAM,

WAF, encryption), monitoring (CloudWatch), and disaster recovery.

• Core Technical Skills: Proficiency with RESTful APIs, Git (GitHub/Bitbucket), scalable CSS

(SASS, CSS Modules), and MySQL (via AWS RDS).

• Bonus: Familiarity with mobile development (React Native, iOS/Android) is a plus.