Your go-to guide to hire a perfect PHP developer

Want to hire PHP developers that are the best in the market? We know how to do so! Although the hiring process seems pretty complicated, especially if you never did it before, some simple tips and tricks will make it feel less tiresome. And we’re about to share all of them with you right away! 

But first, let’s make clear we’re all on the same page. 

What is PHP? 

PHP is a scripting language, a general-purpose one, that is very common in web development. It is the primary backend development language created by the Canadian/Danish programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994. Yes, you’ve heard it right. It was designed almost three decades ago but is still used today: that’s how good it is. 

But what exactly is the function of PHP, and why do you need a PHP developer?

If you hire a PHP developer, you can expect him to create and implement different web-based products using PHP along with MySQL, JavaScript, and Ajax. He’ll develop backend components, help connect your app with the web services, and participate in front-end tasks, ensuring developers that their work is easily integrated within the application.

You can also expect them to develop or integrate plugins for the popular frameworks when required. To put it shortly, your PHP developer will: 

• Analyze the code 
• Develop and optimize the database 
• Take care of the maintenance. 
• Conduct testings

It all sounds decent, but you might wonder how popular PHP is and why everyone seems to be using it? To this question, we’ll list a couple of facts: 

• PHP is the core language of Facebook, WordPress web platform, and Magento eCommerce.
• StackOverflow lists it among the top 10 most popular technologies. 
• According to iDataLabs, PHP has a 92.71% market share, ahead of popular programming languages like Python, Java, and Perl. 
• PHP is considered to be the 5th most popular programming language in the PYPL rating done by GitHub. 

Now that we have gone through some basic definitions and concepts, let’s jump to the: 

Ultimate guide to hire a perfect PHP developer 

• Know your project 

Before you even start to look for the PHP developer, you need to understand what exactly you’re going to ask from them. Can you explain your project and in what format you’re going to collaborate with the PHP developer? Is it going to be a one-time project, or do you need a more long-term commitment? These are the things you need to figure out yourself first. It will help you understand how much expertise you expect from your PHP developer and which working model would work best. 

• Find your PHP developer 

How do you find a PHP developer? Well, there are a couple of ways you can go here. If you want an in-house developer, you could ask for referrals from the people you trust. Or you could go with a simple job post. 

But sometimes, hiring an in-house employee is too much of a hassle. You should take care of their benefits, salary raises, provide them a month-long training and generally make them a part of your company culture for years to come. If this sounds like too much commitment, outsourcing or hiring a freelance PHP developer would be a better alternative. 

• Interview your candidates 

Once you found a couple of good developers and skimmed through their portfolios, it’s time to invite them to an interview. Remember that your interview should include both technical questions and soft ones. You want to understand how proficient your developer is in PHP and what type of person he is in general. Try to figure out whether it would be easy to work with him to avoid sudden conflicts. 

• Give him a task 

The final step is to decide whether the PHP developer is the one or not by giving him a practical task. Try to assign something that could be a part of his working day if he is accepted. You want to understand for real whether the PHP developer can handle your company tasks or not. 

If a developer passes all of these four challenges successfully, you can sleep tight at night knowing that you found the PHP developer of your heart. Let us know how the hiring process went in the comments section!