Laravel Backend Engineer – API Health, Synthetic Monitoring & Dashboard (MongoDB)

We operate a production mobile app with a Laravel REST API and MongoDB backend.
An internal Laravel-based admin dashboard already exists, but the current API monitoring only checks endpoint availability and does not reflect real system or business health.

We are looking for an experienced Laravel backend engineer to design and implement a professional health monitoring & incident system, comparable to how large platforms (Meta, Google) monitor real user journeys, not just HTTP status codes.

This is not a UI-only task and not a web application project.
The system must simulate real mobile API flows (synthetic checks).

Proof of Concept / Demo Requirement (Important)
Before integration into our production system:
The freelancer will build a working demo / proof of concept on their own system

The demo must show:
Health endpoints
Synthetic login check
Incident creation logic

Basic dashboard visibility

After review and approval, the solution will be implemented together with our in-house developer into our production codebase

This approach allows us to:

Validate architecture & logic early
Avoid risky experimentation in production
Ensure clean integration and knowledge transfer
Collaboration Requirement (Very Important)

You will work closely with our internal developer
The demo implementation must be explainable and transferable

Integration into our system will be done collaboratively
Clean code, documentation, and structured handover are mandatory
We are not looking for a “black box” or drop-and-run freelancer.

Main Goal
Build a robust health & incident system that can:
Detect real failures before users report them
Validate business-critical mobile flows (especially login)
Store health results & incidents in MongoDB
Display results clearly in the Laravel dashboard
Support safe admin actions (restart worker/API, feature flags)

Tech Stack (Required Experience)
Laravel (REST API, Scheduler, Middleware)
MongoDB (schema design, indexes)
API authentication & security
Background jobs / schedulers
Monitoring & incident concepts

Nice to have
spatie/laravel-health
SRE / DevOps mindset
Docker-based setups

Scope of Work
Health Endpoints

Implement and/or integrate:

/health/live → process alive only
/health/ready → MongoDB + dependencies
Synthetic mobile login test (NO web app)

The login test must call the same API endpoint used by the mobile app, using a dedicated test user and mobile-style headers.
Synthetic Monitoring

Scheduled checks for:
Login (business-critical)
Feed read
Optional: post write (dummy data)
DB ping (Mongo)
Optional: queue/worker heartbeat
Each check must store results in MongoDB:
status (OK / DEGRADED / FAIL)
latency
error_code
last success / failure
consecutive failures

Incident Engine

Automatically create incidents when thresholds are exceeded, e.g.:
Login fails for 3 consecutive runs → Critical Incident
API ready fails → Critical Incident
DB latency degraded → Warning Incident

Incident lifecycle:

OPEN → INVESTIGATING → RESOLVED

Dashboard Integration
Extend the existing Laravel dashboard with:
Critical User Journeys section
System Health section
Active Incidents list
Incident detail view

Audit log

- Admin Actions (Safe & Audited)
Implement controlled actions:
Restart API / Worker
Retry failed jobs (limited)
Feature flags (e.g. disable push)

All actions must be:
Role-protected
Rate-limited
Fully audit-logged
Security Requirements
No secrets or tokens stored in logs
Dedicated test user with no permissions
Internal-only endpoints (IP allowlist or signed requests)
Protection against restart loops
Deliverables
Demo / proof-of-concept implementation
Production-ready Laravel code
MongoDB collections & indexes
Scheduler jobs
Dashboard components
Short technical documentation / handover