Backend Developer

Backend Developer Opportunity

Looking for a place where your ideas are heard, your code is shipped, and learning never stops? Do you want to learn by building software that powers real-world events — from festivals to film shoots in 70+ countries?

About us

Rentman is a B2B SaaS scaleup building smart, powerful resource management software for event and production teams. Our users plan everything from small shoots to massive festivals in 70+ countries - and they all rely on Rentman to keep their gear, people, and timing perfectly in sync. We’re based in Utrecht (NL) with a second office in Toronto (CA), and our team includes 100+ people from 30+ nationalities. We work in English, and our culture is open, inclusive, and flat — built on curiosity, ownership, and the freedom to challenge ideas.

Mission Of This Role:

As a Backend Developer you will make the lives of suppliers to the event industry across the globe as easy as it can be. You’ll build and scale the core systems behind our SaaS platform — from high-performance APIs to features that handle complex business logic, large datasets, and real-time collaboration. You’ll work closely with frontend developers, product owners, and architects to ship reliable, maintainable code that supports thousands of users in the fast-paced world of live events.

What Are You Going To Do?

• Solve complex product and user problems by designing backend solutions that balance performance, scalability, and maintainability
• Support on feature development — from architecture and database design to testing and deployment
• Pushing innovation, taking initiative & ownership
• Improve and extend our application stack with the architecture team, tackling performance, scalability, and maintainability challenges
• Having fun doing all of the above

Our Stack:

Rentman is a modern cloud-based web-application relied on daily by our users to administer movement of equipment and access data on the go.

Back-end

• From a back-end perspective, Rentman consists of our internal API, a public API and a set of microservices. The internal API is quite intense on complex database calculations.
• Modern version of PHP and MySQL, used in our internal API
• Modern versions of Laravel, used by some of the microservices
• Our backend is deployed on AWS
• We work based on "Continuous integration" so our systems can be separately run on different versions

Front-End:

• Current version of Angular as our main frontend framework, using Typescript
• Compilation and bundling done by Webpack
• Websockets (NodeJS and SocketIO) to sync data between clients
• We work based on "Continuous integration" so our systems can separately run on different version

Testing Approach

• Automated unit testing on every pull request
• Automated E2E tests with Ghost Inspector, running weekly and on-demand
• Automated mobile app tests with Appium and Webdriverio
• Weekly manual regression testing
• Manual testing on-demand

Methodology:

We follow Scrum with two-week sprints and weekly releases. Our four self-organising dev teams each focus on their own product stream and consist of a product owner and 4 to 6 frontend or backend developers, one of them has the role of scrum master. A dedicated QA team supports testing and manages regression tests and releases. During a weekly 'Tech Alignment' meeting, developers together with the CTO discuss technology, address technical debt and decide on our technical roadmap. 20% sprint capacity can be used for initiatives on the technical roadmap.

Essential attributes to be a successful Backend Developer

• Focus in PHP - writing efficient, scalable code that handles complex business logic. You’ve worked on real-world systems with scaling challenges: optimizing performance, understanding architecture, and handling large volumes of data or requests.
• Strong SQL skills – comfortable working with complex data models and performance-critical queries
• Experience with test frameworks such as PHPUnit and PHPBench
• Familiarity with integrating APIs and external services
• You care about writing clean, readable code supported by unit and integration tests
• Experience in collaborative, multidisciplinary product teams – you work well with frontend engineers, designers, and product managers
• Scalability mindset – not only do you write scalable code, but you also help the company scale by sharing knowledge, improving processes, and raising the bar
• Solid foundation in computer science – an academic background in computer science or similar (bachelor/master)
• A personality that thrives at Rentman – strong ownership, collaborative spirit, curiosity, and a drive to solve complex problems together

Nice-to-have attributes to make you a perfect match for the Backend Developer

• You also write strict, efficient, readable, and secure code, and you’re familiar with static analysis tools like PHPStan or Psalm
• Experience with Symfony or Laravel (or both)
• Experience with complex scheduling logic – combining data from many different sources into an efficient and correct representation

What you'll get

• An ambitious, inclusive, diverse international team
• Competitive salary range of €3,900 to €4,600 per month (+8% holiday benefit), based on experience
• A “13th month” annual bonus based on company results
• 25 days of paid vacation, plus one extra day off each year up to your 5-year anniversary
• A paid 4-week sabbatical after 5 years to go on an adventure
• Flexible WFH policy & work from anywhere for 4 weeks a year
• A shiny Windows, Linux or Mac of your choice
• An Annual training budget to boost your skill
• A pension plan via BrightPensioen
• Access to OpenUp for mental well-being and personal growth
• Sports activities (Rentman football team, squash and padel) and a Onefit fitness subscription
• An OV Business card if you live further than 10km away from the office
• A flexible and engaging work environment with free lunches, office perks (PS5, Ping Pong, D&D), legendary karaoke parties, and various team activities
• An amazing office in the heart of Utrecht, Netherlands, at the historical Drift 17

At Rentman, we celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that our differences make us stronger and strive to foster a workplace where everyone feels valued and respected.