Senior AI Software Engineer – Application Modernisation

JD-Senior-AI-Software-Engineer Senior

— Job Description - Position Details

Job Title

Senior AI Software Engineer – Application Modernisation

Experience

4–7 years in software development, including at least 12 months of sustained, hands-on use of an agentic AI coding tool on real applications (see Required Skills)

Openings

1

Employment Type

Full-time

Department

Engineering — Product Development

Location

Chennai (in-office)

About ColorPodge

ColorPodge develops cloud-based colour-management software for the apparel and homewares industries. Its SaaS products support colour development, approvals, supply-chain collaboration, and specialised business processes for international customers.

Role Summary

ColorPodge is changing the way it builds and maintains software. AI coding agents such as Claude Code are now part of everyday development: we use them to understand established applications, upgrade them to current frameworks while they remain in use, reconstruct smaller legacy applications on a modern stack, and build new products. We are looking for an engineer who already works this way. You will have used AI coding tools to build, modernise, debug or maintain real applications, not only to generate snippets, and you will be able to take an unfamiliar application, with its code, its database and its business rules, and deliver a modernised or reconstructed version with evidence that it behaves correctly. The work ranges from upgrading established, business-critical web applications to current framework, language and database versions while they stay in use, with their features, data and user workflows preserved, to reconstructing legacy applications as new builds and building new modules on PHP 8 and modern JavaScript. The role is hands-on and outcome-owned: you direct the tools, you review and verify what they produce, and you are the author of record for everything that is merged.

Key Responsibilities

AI-assisted analysis and modernisation • • • •

• Use AI coding tools to map an unfamiliar application: its modules, URL map, data model, business rules, role-based behaviour and integrations; produce written findings that others can check.
• Plan and carry out modernisation module by module with the Tech Lead: upgrade in place (framework, language and database versions) or reconstruct on a modern stack, as agreed per module.
• Preserve existing URLs, form and API contracts, calculations, workflow outcomes and emails wherever the application stays in use; document and agree any deliberate change in behaviour before it is made.
• Direct the tools with precise specifications, constraints and acceptance criteria; break work into small verifiable steps; keep the tools within the agreed scope (production systems and customer data stay out of their reach).

Verification and quality • • • •

• Review every AI-generated change as its author: read it, run it, and check its logic, data handling, security and performance before it is merged.
• Generate and maintain automated tests (PHPUnit for services and models; Playwright or similar for pages, in a real browser) and use them as the proof that behaviour is unchanged and as the regression suite; write tests first where none exist.
• Compare old and new behaviour per user role with evidence: the same controls, data, validations, database writes and emails.
• Debug failures independently, including failures in the tool's own output: invented APIs, silently changed behaviour, insecure shortcuts, and tests that pass without testing anything.

Engineering practice

• Develop in PHP 8, MySQL 8, JavaScript, HTML and CSS using a modern application structure: explicit routes, controllers, models, services for business logic, filters or middleware for authentication and security, migrations with working rollback, and configuration through environment variables.
• Apply secure coding practices (input validation, output escaping, CSRF protection, role-based authorisation, secure file handling) and fix weaknesses found in existing code.
• Follow the Git workflow: feature branches, small reviewable commits, pull requests and code review, including review of colleagues' AI-assisted changes.
• Work in containerised development and staging environments; deploy, verify and investigate issues from application and server logs; respect the safety rules for non-production environments (no real email, no production credentials, isolated test data).
• Improve the user interface progressively while modernising (forms, tables, dialogs, responsiveness, accessibility) without removing features or changing navigation.

Collaboration and reporting

• Work to a module-by-module plan, report progress against milestones with evidence, and raise risks and blockers early.
• Clarify ambiguous legacy behaviour with the Tech Lead and business stakeholders before reproducing or changing it.
• Document the modules delivered: structure, decisions taken, agreed changes in behaviour, and what the support team needs to know.
• Share effective prompts, workflows, guardrails and lessons with the team, and help colleagues adopt AI assisted development well.
• Use only company-approved AI tools and accounts, and follow the rules on what code and data may be sent to them.

Required Skills and Qualifications

• Practical AI-assisted development experience (mandatory). At least 12 months of sustained, hands-on use of an agentic AI coding tool (Claude Code, or a comparable tool such as Cursor, GitHub Copilot in agent mode, OpenAI Codex CLI, Windsurf or Aider) to build, modernise, debug or maintain real applications. Occasional code generation in a chat window does not qualify. Shortlisted candidates will be asked to show this work and will complete a practical assessment in which they use an AI tool to understand and modify an unfamiliar application.
• Professional experience developing and maintaining production web applications, owning features from analysis to release.
• Experience modernising, migrating or reconstructing a legacy application (a framework or language major-version upgrade, a re-platforming or a rebuild) while the original stayed in use.
• Ability to read unfamiliar code and database schemas, work out what they do and why, and extract the business rules from them.
• Strong PHP (8.x: type declarations, null handling, exceptions, namespaces, Composer, PSR standards) and MySQL (schema design, joins, indexes, query optimisation, transactions, version differences); solid JavaScript, HTML and CSS, including AJAX-driven pages.
• Experience writing and maintaining automated tests (PHPUnit; Playwright, Cypress or Selenium) and working with a regression suite.
• Ability to review, debug and validate AI-generated code independently: spotting incorrect logic, insecure patterns, performance problems and tests that prove nothing.
• Understanding of application security (authentication, session handling, role-based authorisation, CSRF, XSS, SQL injection, secure file handling), performance, and deployment (Linux, Nginx or Apache, PHP-FPM, Docker, Git).
• Disciplined, evidence-based working style: small verifiable changes, proof before claiming a module is complete, and clear written communication.

Preferred Skills

• CodeIgniter 3 and 4, or Laravel; experience with a framework or PHP major-version upgrade.
• Experience setting up AI coding agents for a team: project instruction files, tool permissions and guardrails, MCP integrations, test-driven loops, or running several agents in parallel.
• Role-based business applications in supply chain, retail, manufacturing or approval workflows.
• Cloud platforms (Azure or AWS), CI/CD pipelines, cloud storage, transactional email services and single sign-on integrations.

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. Relevant certifications are a plus.

ISMS / ISO/IEC 27001 Responsibilities

Practice good cyber hygiene by following the established policies and procedures:

• Keep your devices and applications patched and up to date.
• Use strong, unique passphrases — make them long, complex, or both.
• Secure all devices with a strong password or PIN, and set them to lock after a few minutes of inactivity as per IT policy.
• Encrypt anything that stores sensitive information.
• Turn on built-in anti-malware software and firewall.
• Back up important files and data.
• Use separate accounts for privileged (administrator) and non-privileged (user) access.
• Complete required cybersecurity training.
• Report security incidents and respond to security notices.
• Refrain from sharing or discussing company information with external parties both during and after your employment.

Pay: ₹800,000.00 - ₹1,200,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Provident Fund

Work Location: In person