Senior Backend Developer - Team Crew
About us
Rentman is a B2B SaaS scaleup where we build the leading operations management platform to support event and media production teams. Think of us as the JetBrains for the event and media world.
Our product is our main and only focus. So if you want to work on, and improve, a long-term codebase, and think about the larger technical and product picture, then Rentman can be an interesting match for you.
Remember the last event you attended? Remember the lights, speakers, decorations, bars and everything there is to see there? All those resources need to be planned up front, tracked and transported. That’s where Rentman comes into place. 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 100+ team members work in a culture that’s open, flat, and inclusive, where curiosity drives us, ownership matters, and everyone has the freedom to challenge ideas and make an impact.
Check out our public roadmap to see what’s coming next!
The Crew Team
When you attend a festival, it’s easy to focus on what’s happening on stage. But behind every smooth production is a carefully coordinated crew. People scheduled at the right time, with the right skills, working within tight budgets and changing plans. Making that coordination work at scale is complex, and it’s exactly where the Crew product at Rentman comes in.
The Crew team is responsible for everything related to planning, budgeting, and managing people on productions. Today, this means helping companies plan shifts, track availability, and stay in control of labour costs. Looking ahead, the product is evolving into a full crew platform that allows customers to not only manage their internal teams, but also source freelancers directly within Rentman. This shift brings new technical and product challenges, from complex data models to scalable APIs that can support new workflows without compromising reliability.
As a Senior Backend Developer in the Crew team, you play a key role in shaping this evolution. You design and build new backend features using PHP and MySQL, take ownership of complex product areas from architecture to deployment, and help ensure long-term scalability and maintainability. You work closely with product managers, frontend engineers, and architects to make thoughtful trade-offs, mentor other developers through code reviews and technical discussions, and contribute to raising the overall quality of technical decision-making. Along the way, you proactively identify risks, address technical debt, and help guide the transition towards more modern framework practices, ensuring Rentman becomes the single, reliable platform our customers depend on for crew management
Recent features of the crew team
Cost control! Big events require a large crew to build it. They all need to travel to the venue, get catering and sometimes even accommodation. Keeping your project within budget with these complex dynamics requires good software to manage this. The recently added cost control and labor purchase orders module is another step in supporting our customers staying profitable.
Leave management. To serve our customers better we are transforming our crew planning product into a larger set of HR functionalities. To make our customers' planning more accurate they can now keep track of leave requests, PTO balances and approve or reject time registrations. The more complete the information about leave, existing plannings is the more we can also support our customers in automatically suggesting crew plannings for them. You can read more about our crew scheduling software here.
Our way of working
Rentman currently has 5 self-sufficient development teams, with plans to expand to 7 in the near future to realise all of our product goals.
The teams we currently have are:
Team equipment (See our open position here)
Team financials (See our open position here)
Team project management - Responsible for our soon-to-be-released Organize product
Team crew (You are here)
Team lifecycle - Responsible for everything related to onboarding and customer health
We strive to have all development teams self-sufficient and self-structured. A perfect development team consists of 2 frontend developers, 2 backend developers, a product owner, a QA engineer and a designer.
While every team is free to set their own structure and goals, currently all teams work in a traditional scrum way. 2 week sprints, with a retro to end the sprint.
Customer understanding is important at Rentman, so we facilitate visiting warehouses, interacting with customers at our “Rentman live” events, and joining various trade shows to hear first-hand from our customers how they experience our software.
Our tech stack in a nutshell
Our front-end is an Angular based SPA with over 3.500 components. It is based on a custom-made design system, and the main data-views are powered by AG-Grid. We strive to stay up-to-date with all latest developments, and we usually migrate to the latest Angular versions within 2 weeks of a new release.
Behind the scenes, our backend is the backbone of the platform. It consists of a powerful internal API, a public API, and a growing set of microservices. The internal API is built with modern PHP and MySQL and handles complex business logic and database-heavy calculations where performance and correctness matter most. For isolated domains and newer product areas, we use modern Laravel-based microservices.
Our backend is developed with continuous integration in mind, allowing different parts of the system to evolve independently. Quality is safeguarded through automated unit tests on every pull request, automated end-to-end tests with Ghost Inspector, mobile tests using Appium and WebdriverIO, and regular manual regression testing.
What we’re looking for
5+ years of backend development experience, with product led companies
Deep SQL expertise, including database design and performance optimisation
Proven experience leading complex feature development end-to-end
Strong problem-solving ability, balancing long-term quality with fast-paced delivery
Collaborative communicator who can bring focus and structure to an enthusiastic team
Positive mindset towards using AI in the development toolchain (The development landscape is changing rapidly, and at Rentman we’re open to exploring how this can benefit us in our day-to-day work)
For us, experience with PHP is a strong plus. Familiarity with AWS or infrastructure-as-code is also valuable, but not a requirement. At Rentman, we believe solid engineering fundamentals matter more than specific tools, and that a curious developer can grow into new technologies, including full-stack work, when the problem calls for it.
What you'll get
An ambitious, inclusive, diverse international team
Competitive salary (+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 from your 2nd year onwards up to your 5-year anniversary
A paid 4-week sabbatical after 5 years to go on an adventure
Flexible WFH policy and 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 an Urban Sports 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
Our hiring process
Here's a breakdown of our recruitment process to give you a clear idea of what to expect:
Call with recruiter an introduction to Rentman & the process (30 mins)
Interview about Past Experience & Culture. Showcase work/code you’re proud of (45 mins)
Afterwards a conversational assessment with a developer (Refine an issue, review a design, pair-review a PR) (45 mins)
If this sounds like the challenge you’re looking for we’d love to hear from you, apply via the link.
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.