NNNzuzo Ndlovu Get in touch

Senior PHP / Laravel Engineer · Durban, South Africa

I build PHP systems that stay fast and online when the traffic arrives.

I have spent 10 years on e-commerce platforms, APIs and the servers that run them. Today I engineer Magento for one of South Africa's largest retailers, where checkout has to hold up on Black Friday.

Open to senior and lead roles · 4 weeks' notice
See my experience LinkedIn ↗
~ composer show nzuzo/ndlovu
name     : nzuzo/ndlovu
descrip. : Senior PHP / Laravel engineer
keywords : magento, laravel, wordpress,
           rest, graphql, devops
versions : * 10.0 (since 2016)
type     : full-stack, backend-leaning
location : Durban, ZA (UTC+2)
work     : remote · hybrid

requires
php                 8.x
mysql / mariadb     schema design, tuning
redis · varnish     caching at scale
elasticsearch       search performance
docker · nginx      aws · azure · do

suggests
python · tensorflow · keras · nlp
500k+monthly transactions on Magento modules I built and maintain
2M+events a day through a real-time analytics API I designed
98.6%uptime across retail systems, with zero downtime on Black Friday
10 yrsshipping PHP in production, from startup to enterprise

What I bring

An engineer who can own the code and the servers it runs on.

Most of my work sits where application code meets infrastructure. That is where performance problems hide and where outages start.

High-traffic e-commerce

Checkout, promotions and inventory sync on Magento for a large national retailer. I fix the slow paths, such as memory leaks in the cart, that cost real sales.

35% faster page loads · 22% less cart abandonment

APIs and backend architecture

RESTful and GraphQL APIs in Laravel, MySQL schemas designed for heavy write loads, and integrations with payment gateways, ad networks and social platforms.

12+ production APIs · 65% faster queries

Infrastructure and reliability

I provision Linux servers on AWS, Azure and DigitalOcean, tune Nginx and PHP-FPM, automate deployments and set up monitoring before anything goes wrong.

50+ sites monitored · setup cut from days to hours

Quality and technical leadership

I introduced PHPUnit testing and peer review on a retail team, and led WordPress infrastructure for clients listed on the London Stock Exchange.

40% fewer production bugs · 80%+ test coverage

Experience

Ten years, four companies, one direction: bigger scale.

  1. Oct 2022 – Present Hybrid · Full-time Current role

    Software Engineer · Mr Price Group

    Magento engineer on high-traffic retail systems

    • Built and optimised 8+ Magento modules (PHP 8.x) for checkout, promotions and inventory sync, supporting 500k+ monthly transactions with zero downtime during Black Friday.
    • Found and fixed memory leaks in cart and checkout flows, cutting page load times by 35% and cart abandonment by 22%.
    • Introduced PHPUnit testing and peer code reviews, reducing post-release production bugs by 40%.
    • Improved Elasticsearch indexing and Varnish cache rules, making search 50% faster during sales peaks.
    • Worked with DevOps on Azure and Redis configuration to reach 98.6% uptime across retail systems.
    • Magento
    • PHP 8
    • MySQL
    • SQL Server
    • GraphQL
    • Elasticsearch
    • Redis
    • Varnish
    • Docker
    • PHPUnit
    • Azure
  2. Sep 2024 – Mar 2026 Remote · Freelance, part-time 1 yr 6 mos

    Technical Lead · Invicomm | Stoneway

    WordPress and infrastructure lead

    Clients included companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, where security and uptime were non-negotiable. I owned client relationships, turned requirements into workable plans, and delivered on the dates I committed to.

    • Hardened WordPress installations with Cloudflare firewalls, malware scanning and strict permission management.
    • Ran testing and deployment of WordPress core, theme and plugin updates so releases went out cleanly.
    • Designed and monitored automated backups, and regularly tested that recovery actually worked.
    • Managed Apache and Nginx servers, optimised MySQL/MariaDB and tuned PHP-FPM for performance.
    • Set up uptime and performance monitoring for fast response to outages.
    • Gave technical estimates and coordinated timelines across design, development and marketing.
    • WordPress
    • PHP
    • Linux
    • MariaDB
    • Cloudflare
    • Docker
    • Vagrant
    • JavaScript
  3. Jun 2018 – Oct 2022 Hybrid · Full-time 4 yrs 4 mos

    Web Developer · Firstview Media

    Backend engineer and infrastructure specialist

    Built and scaled APIs and infrastructure for platforms serving millions of users, and was the lead engineer called in for urgent debugging.

    • Designed and deployed 12+ RESTful APIs in Laravel, including a real-time analytics dashboard processing 2M+ events a day.
    • Provisioned Linux servers on AWS and DigitalOcean, configured Nginx and automated deployments with Laravel Forge, cutting setup time from days to hours.
    • Optimised MySQL schemas for high-write workloads, reducing query times by 65% and enabling zero-downtime migrations.
    • Integrated payment gateways, ad networks and social APIs that opened new revenue streams.
    • Monitored 50+ sites with New Relic and Sentry and maintained 80%+ test coverage.
    • Laravel
    • MySQL
    • REST API design
    • Database design
    • Nginx
    • AWS
    • Laravel Forge
    • Docker
    • WordPress
  4. May 2016 – Jun 2018 Office-based · Full-time 2 yrs 1 mo

    Software Developer · Adit Solutions

    Junior developer and infrastructure specialist at an ad-tech startup

    • Delivered 10+ PHP and JavaScript tools, including a dashboard that cut campaign setup time by 70%.
    • Programmed Python media players on Raspberry Pi and deployed 200+ Taxi TV units across vehicle fleets.
    • Implemented AWS EC2 auto-scaling and a drag-and-drop UI to solve client pain points.
    • Managed LAMP/LEMP stacks, patched vulnerabilities and kept services up 24/7 through high-traffic events.
    • PHP
    • JavaScript
    • Python
    • Raspberry Pi
    • Amazon EC2
    • Ruby on Rails
    • Android
    • Bootstrap
    • SEO

Skills

The stack I work in every day

Highlighted items are the ones I have run in production at scale.

Languages core

  • PHP 8
  • SQL
  • JavaScript
  • Python
  • CSS
  • Ruby

Frameworks & platforms

  • Laravel
  • Magento 2
  • WordPress
  • Ruby on Rails
  • Bootstrap

APIs & integrations

  • REST API design
  • GraphQL
  • Payment gateways
  • Ad networks
  • Social APIs

Data, search & caching

  • MySQL
  • MariaDB
  • SQL Server
  • Redis
  • Elasticsearch
  • Varnish

Infrastructure & cloud

  • Linux
  • Nginx
  • Apache
  • PHP-FPM
  • Docker
  • AWS
  • Azure
  • DigitalOcean
  • Laravel Forge
  • Cloudflare

Quality & observability

  • PHPUnit
  • Code review
  • New Relic
  • Sentry
  • Uptime monitoring
  • Git

How I work: Ownership and accountabilityClear communicationCross-functional collaborationSystems thinkingMentoring

Education & growth

Bringing AI into PHP systems

My grounding is in IT. I am now formally training in machine learning so I can build AI features into production systems.

Diploma · 2015 – 2017

National Diploma in Information Technology

Durban University of Technology Completed
Certification · 2026

Deep Learning with TensorFlow

IBM Completed
Programme · 2025

Artificial Intelligence Software Developer

Deviare Completed

Covers statistics, data science with Python and SQL, Tableau, machine learning, deep learning with Keras and TensorFlow, computer vision and NLP.

Hiring?

Let's talk about what you're building.

I'm looking for a senior or lead role where PHP systems carry real traffic and real revenue. Message me on LinkedIn and I'll reply with my full CV.

Message me on LinkedIn ↗
Role
Senior / Lead PHP Engineer
Experience
10 years
Based in
Durban, South Africa (UTC+2)
Work style
Remote or hybrid
Notice
4 weeks