VALSTR
Full-Stack Developer (PHP and Azure)
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Company Description
VALSTR is a decision intelligence company that helps organizations understand how AI and data can improve business performance. By identifying high-impact opportunities and designing targeted solutions, VALSTR supports clients in planning and executing successful digital and data transformations. The company focuses on practical, results-driven applications of AI, ensuring that technology investments align with strategic goals. VALSTR collaborates closely with stakeholders to deliver measurable value and long-term growth.
VALSTR | Hybrid: 2/3 days a week at our Leadenhall office
We are looking for one very good full-stack developer to help us build VALSTR: the platform that turns data and AI strategy work into something clients can actually run.
You would be joining a small team where the code you write on Tuesday is in front of a client on Thursday. There is no committee between you and the product. If that sounds like your kind of thing, keep reading.
Who we are
VALSTR helps organizations get real value out of their data and AI investments. Our founder, Simon Asplen-Taylor, wrote the book on it, literally: Data and Analytics Strategy for Business (Kogan Page). The consulting practice has spent years refining a way of doing this work that holds up in the room with a board and survives contact with reality afterwards.
VALSTR is that methodology, built into software. Assessments, strategy development, business cases, readiness, roadmaps, operating model design: each one a module, each one taking work that used to live in a consultant's head and a hundred spreadsheets and making it repeatable.
It is a genuinely interesting problem.
What you would work on
VALSTR is a server-rendered PHP application hosted in Azure. Concretely, that means:
- PHP 8.4, with straight HTML, CSS and JavaScript on the front end. No large front-end framework, deliberately. Many of our customers run locked-down corporate workstations, so keeping browser-side dependencies minimal is a feature rather than an oversight.
- Azure throughout: App Service for hosting, Azure SQL for business data, Blob Storage for documents and generated files, Key Vault for secrets, and Microsoft Entra for identity. Users sign in with their Microsoft work accounts.
- A shared data gateway giving the whole application one route into Azure SQL, using PDO and prepared statements. Sessions, identity, reporting, logging and security controls live in common services rather than being reinvented in every module.
- Document generation through PHPSpreadsheet, PHPWord, FPDF and FPDI. A lot of what VALSTR produces ends up as a board pack, so this matters more than it might elsewhere.
- Azure AI Foundry for assisted analysis and report content.
- GitHub Actions deploying to Azure from main, authenticating with Microsoft identity tokens rather than a stored credential.
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The dependency set is small and stays small. That is a choice we have made and intend to keep making.
What the work actually feels like …
- Routine fixes and small enhancements usually stay inside existing module boundaries and take a few hours.
- A genuinely new capability, following the established pattern and reusing shared components, is often about a working day.
- You will spend your time solving the business problem rather than fighting the framework, which is unusual enough to be worth saying out loud.
- You will also have real ownership. On a team this size, you would be one of the people who decides how VALSTR is built, not someone implementing tickets written by somebody else.
What we are looking for
You will need:
- Strong, current PHP: modern versions, PDO, prepared statements, an instinct for where the injection risks are.
- Comfort with server-rendered applications and enough front-end skill to build clean, accessible interfaces in plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
- Real experience with Azure, or a track record with another major cloud and clear enthusiasm for picking Azure up quickly. App Service, SQL, Blob Storage and Key Vault are the ones that matter here.
- Solid SQL. You should be able to reason about a schema, not just query it.
- Security awareness as a habit rather than a checklist: CSRF protection, session handling, output escaping, safe error handling, keeping secrets out of the repository.
- The judgement to work inside an established pattern, and to know when something genuinely warrants departing from it.
Get help with your application
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Useful, not essential:
- Microsoft Entra ID, OIDC and token validation.
- CI/CD with GitHub Actions, and federated identity for deployment.
- Document generation libraries such as PHPSpreadsheet, PHPWord or FPDF.
- Working with LLM APIs in a product context, where output quality and cost both count.
- Any background in data strategy, analytics or consultancy. You do not need it, but you will pick the domain up faster if you have it.
And regardless of the above: you should be someone who can talk to a non-technical colleague about what you are building, and who cares whether the thing you shipped was useful.
Practicalities
- Location: hybrid, with 2/3 days a week at our Leadenhall office. UK-based.
- Engagement: we are open to permanent or contract. Tell us what suits you and we will have the conversation.
- Compensation: To be discussed.
How to apply
Send a CV or a link to your work to simon@valstr.com. A short note about something you have built that you were proud of, and why, will get our attention more reliably than a covering letter written for everyone.
We read everything and we reply to everyone.
VALSTR is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications from every background, and we are happy to make reasonable adjustments at any stage of the process. Just ask.
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