Job Description We are looking for a Senior Technical Lead / Architect Developer to help audit, improve, and lead the technical development of our international automotive marketplace platform. Our company exports used cars from Japan to customers worldwide. Our website currently contains 100,000+ vehicle listings and integrates with Japanese vehicle auctions and dealer inventory feeds. This role is ideal for an experienced engineer who can both design system architecture and actively contribute to coding. You will work directly with the business owner and help guide future development of the platform. About Our Platform Our system includes two main components: 1. Public Website (SEO Marketplace) Used by international customers to: browse fixed-price vehicle inventory search and filter listings view vehicle detail pages send inquiries calculate shipping costs generate invoices track orders browse import regulations This platform focuses heavily on SEO and organic traffic growth. 2. Private Auction Portal A separate member-only system where registered users can: access Japanese car auctions search auction inventory place bids manage deposits and invoices Auction data is updated daily through API feeds. Current Technical Stack The platform currently includes: Custom PHP codebase API vehicle inventory feeds Cloudflare CDN GoDaddy VPS hosting WordPress blog (separate instance) External auction system on subdomain However, the platform requires: technical audit architecture improvements bug fixes performance optimization improved developer workflow Responsibilities The Technical Lead will: System Architecture Review and improve the current system architecture Design scalable infrastructure for large vehicle inventories Improve database structure and API integrations Optimize search and filtering performance Development Fix critical platform issues and bugs Implement core backend improvements Optimize performance and page speed Improve SEO page generation Technical Leadership Guide and review work of other developers when needed Establish coding standards and deployment processes Recommend best technologies and frameworks Platform Optimization Improve scalability for large inventory datasets Optimize system for SEO-driven traffic Improve reliability of API integrations Required Experience Candidates should have strong experience with: Large marketplace or eCommerce platforms PHP / Laravel or modern backend frameworks REST APIs and third-party integrations Database architecture (MySQL / PostgreSQL) High-performance search and filtering systems Server architecture and cloud environments Experience working with high-inventory marketplaces (50k+ listings) is strongly preferred. Nice to Have Experience with automotive marketplaces Experience with large SEO-driven websites Knowledge of scalable frontend frameworks (Next.js / Vue) Experience working with API data feeds Engagement Type Initial engagement will focus on: platform audit bug fixing architecture improvements This may evolve into long-term technical leadership for the project. Estimated commitment: 10–30 hours per month initially. Important Please include in your proposal: Examples of large marketplace or eCommerce platforms you worked on Your experience with high-scale database systems Your preferred technology stack for a platform like this