Phil Stephens

Engineering Leader · Technical Lead · Software Engineer

Brisbane, Australia · [email protected] · philstephens.com
Open to remote or hybrid (Brisbane-based) roles

Summary

Engineering leader and hands-on software engineer with 20+ years of experience building, rescuing, and scaling web platforms. Track record of walking into complex, high-pressure situations — stalled rebuilds, legacy modernisations, overstretched teams — and delivering results through sound architecture, pragmatic engineering decisions, and structured delivery. Experienced across the full engineering leadership spectrum: hiring, performance management, mentoring, Agile delivery, cross-functional collaboration, roadmap ownership, and fostering sustainable engineering culture. Combines deep technical credibility with commercial acumen and a people-first leadership style.

Leadership Capabilities

• Built, hired, and managed engineering teams of up to 7 across multiple products and geographies — full ownership of job descriptions, recruitment, interviews, technical assessments, and onboarding.
• Conducted regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and career development conversations; managed underperformance processes including structured improvement plans and, where necessary, exits.
• Introduced and ran Agile delivery practices including sprint planning, backlog refinement, retrospectives, and roadmap coordination with product, sales, and executive stakeholders.
• Operated as de facto Engineering Manager and Head of Engineering in roles where titles did not reflect actual scope — responsible for delivery, people, process, and technical direction.
• Experienced in building remote-first and hybrid team cultures, establishing knowledge-sharing practices, and creating environments where engineers grow in confidence and autonomy.

Experience

Technical Lead → Product & Engineering Lead · 2021 – 2025

Rex Software · Brisbane, Australia

Joined to rescue Rex Sites — a website builder for real estate agencies — from a stalled rebuild with no technical leadership, misarchitected foundations, and both developers departing shortly after arrival.

• Rebuilt the engineering team from scratch, serving as the sole backend engineer while leading architecture, delivery, and stakeholder communication.
• Stripped out non-performant React client-side rendering, cleaned up the frontend codebase, and shipped a platform sales could confidently sell — retiring 600+ individual WordPress installations on a single EC2 instance.
• Shipped the next-generation platform (multi-tenant Laravel/React/Kubernetes) and expanded it into ANZ and UK markets, growing the client base to 750+ real estate agencies.
• Took on Rex Reach (digital marketing automation for Meta/Google ad networks) after a restructure; rearchitected hard-coded campaign types into a config-driven system, cutting delivery time for new campaign types from months to 2–4 weeks.
• Built migration automations saving the customer success team 3–4 hours per client migration from the legacy WordPress platform.
• Ultimately assumed sole ownership of both products (~$2M combined ARR) as the only technical and product lead — managing roadmap, feature development, partner relationships, and cross-regional support with no PM, designer, or delivery support.

Technical Director · 2017 – 2021

Databee Business Systems · Perth, Australia (Remote)

Led technical delivery and team management for an EdTech company providing examination management software to Australian universities, operating in a highly regulated compliance environment.

• Managed a remote team of 2–3 developers while leading client implementations across on-premises and AWS cloud deployments, owning the full delivery pipeline from requirements through to production.
• Led development of a greenfield product while maintaining and extending the existing platform, balancing new feature work with client delivery commitments.
• Led the company's first AWS-based deployment for a major Sydney university, designing the cloud infrastructure from the ground up.
• Built remote-first team culture across four states with structured knowledge sharing through Confluence; mentored junior developers into productive, confident engineers.

Development Lead · 2016 – 2017

iSeekplant · Brisbane, Australia

Most senior technical hire at a startup transitioning to scale-up after significant investment. Reported directly to the COO with no CTO; responsible for building the entire engineering function from scratch alongside an existing offshore team.

• Architected the migration from a monolithic procedural PHP codebase to a modular Laravel-based architecture deployed on AWS, replacing a fragile single-server setup with resilient, scalable infrastructure.
• Built an in-house engineering team of three (junior through senior) to work alongside the existing offshore team, establishing all development processes, tooling, and practices from scratch.
• Introduced Agile delivery, roadmap planning, backlog refinement, and JIRA-based workflows to a business with no prior engineering process.
• Delivered new product capabilities including Twilio-powered telephony services, a customer website platform, and a cross-platform mobile application.

Technical and Delivery Lead · 2015 – 2016

Fastrack Group · Brisbane, Australia

Brought in to rescue a critical client commitment at a marketing agency serving the travel and tourism industry, where capabilities had been oversold to a major hotel chain.

• Designed and built a bespoke hotel CMS platform in Laravel that delivered on the failing client commitment and became the reusable foundation for all future hotel and travel projects.
• Migrated infrastructure from a single expensive dedicated server to DigitalOcean with per-client deployments, CI/CD via Laravel Forge and Envoyer, and a custom deployment management dashboard — reducing costs while improving resilience.
• Mentored junior developers, introduced Scrum, and improved roadmap planning with founders and the board; the new platform enabled the agency to win larger hotel chain contracts.

Digital and Technical Manager · 2008 – 2014

MacBackpackers / Scotland's Top Hostels · Edinburgh, Scotland

• Led technical strategy and built a full end-to-end booking and property management system, managing all core infrastructure and digital operations across the hostel chain.
• Managed hostel operations for six months to understand the product domain firsthand, directly informing system design and requirements.
• Expanded the reseller network across the UK, Australia, and Canada; created marketing collateral and represented the company at international industry events.

Creative Technologist · 2007 – 2008

Ripe Design International · Leeds, UK

• Built rich media applications and interactive web products for international clients using Flex, ActionScript, and PHP. Presented to stakeholders on-site nationally and internationally.

Technical Skills

Languages & Frameworks: PHP, Laravel, Node.js, Ruby, JavaScript, React, Vue.js, Tailwind CSS, Alpine.js

Infrastructure & Data: AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, DigitalOcean, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch

Practices: CI/CD, TDD, REST APIs, Event-Driven Architecture, Distributed Systems, Modular Monoliths, Legacy Modernisation, Microservices Migration

Domains: Real Estate, E-Commerce, EdTech, Tourism, SaaS, B2B Software, Digital Marketing

Education

BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile · 2018 The Chartered Institute for IT

Master of Architecture · 2001 – 2003 University of Sheffield

Bachelor of Architecture · 1997 – 2000 University of Sheffield

Last Updated: 7 April 2026 · https://philstephens.com/resume