Things to Look Before Hiring PHP Developer

With millions of websites being developed on PHP, it isn’t going anywhere soon. However, there are people who believe that technology is no longer among us and it’s time to call for the funeral. The truth is PHP has been condemned to death & managed to come back with a bang.

Table of Content

1. Benefits of PHP
   • Easy to Use
   • Cost-Effective
   • Less Delopment Time
   • Cross-platform Compatibility
   • Security
   • Community Support
2. Things to keep in mind while Hiring PHP Developer
   • Using the core PHP Functions
   • Must be JavaScript, HTML & CSS Expert
   • Work Experience
   • Testing Experience
   • Adaptive Approach
   • MySQL Performance Tuning
   • Try different Recruitment Models
   • Critical Problem Solving Skills
   • Effective Communication Skills
3. Conclusion

According to W3Tech’s data, PHP is being used by more than 79% of all websites with a known server-programming language. In simple words, 8 out of 10 websites you come across are built on PHP that indicates how many business are using PHP for open source solutions. With the latest versions of PHP, it seems to be becoming faster and stronger. For instance, the new PHP 7.4 version incorporates null coalesce, operator, new type hinting, anonymous classes, nullable types, combined comparison operator, multi-catch exception handling, trailing commas, number operators, and malformed numbers and the list goes on.

Major Benefits of using PHP Includes

• Easy to Use – One of the finest reasons for using PHP as a language is that it is very easy to learn as well as implement. In case of any updation required, PHP developers can easily add more capabilities or seamlessly expand functionalities. Also, the language easily supports some of the most famous content management systems like Drupal, Joomla & WordPress all running on the server-side.
• Cost-Effective – Due to the open-source nature of PHP, developing a website or any web solution turns out to be a minimal venture. The need for buying expensive software is eliminated as PHP can be downloaded for absolutely free.
• Less Delopment Time – Web applications can be developed in a much faster manner. Why You may ask? Because the technology uses its memory reducing the load time dramatically. Therefore, developing eCommerce of any other web application becomes faster.
• Cross-platform Compatibility – By supporting all major operating systems such as Windows, Linux, Mac OS, the website created on PHP can be easily integrated on all the web servers.
• Security – One of the finest reasons for conducting PHP web application development is that it has a security layer that protects businesses against potential viruses as well as threats. Here it becomes the responsibility of a PHP developer to come up with proper error reports, disabling certain features to get rid of common security pitfalls ensuring that users enter appropriate data only.
• Community Support – Having a large number of PHP developers on board who are grateful to share their knowledge and expertise for everyone including business owners as well.

Another interesting perspective about the programming language is that it’s easy to find a reliable professional or a PHP development company around. Unlike for newer frameworks; it isn’t harder at all to find well-experienced experts. Well, one of the prime reasons here is that it is highly flexible and has hundreds of different frameworks that can run on any default web browser. Apart from this most colleges tend to offer PHP as a subject making a massive pool available. Therefore, selecting the most appropriate ones at times becomes extremely difficult.

Things to keep in mind while Hiring PHP Developer

Using the core PHP functions
One of the finest advantages of being a PHP developer is the use of core PHP functions. For those who aren’t well-acquainted with the term, PHP functions assist well in understanding the logic. Now if you are coding something very common these days; there is a slight chance of you finding a predefined PHP function. And we as a reputable PHP development company firmly believe the fact that it is one of the most effective tools to be used.

It may also interest you to know that these PHP functions can be used multiple times. Imagine having more than a thousand types of built-in PHP functions ready to be used during programming. This also means, there is no need to write the same logic every time, saving development time and productivity.

Must be a JavaScript, HTML, CSS expert
Like I said PHP is a huge concept comprising a plethora of frameworks within. So it makes a lot of sense to settle on one and choose professionals accordingly. Now when hiring a PHP expert who is familiar with your chosen framework; do a double-check on whether he can develop or code websites in JavaScript, CSS, and HTML.

Also, check whether he or she is able to coordinate well with the web designers; here knowledge of HTML and CSS comes to play.

HTML – This concept provides a basic structure to the site. Not the final one as a result it can be well modified by budding technologies such as CSS and JavaScript. Being the core of every web page, HyperText Markup Language is used to perform functions by incorporating tags to identify different types of content and the purpose of each one of these services to the webpage. Take any web page into account, each one of these incorporates a bunch of HTML tags denoting each type of content on the page.

Right from adding headings to formatting paragraphs, controlling line breaks, making lists, emphasizing texts, coming up with special characters, inserting images, creating links, building tables, doing some styling, everything is possible by using appropriate HTML tags.

CSS – Mainly used to control presentation, formatting and layout. Cascading Style Sheets is all about making the HTML elements of a website appear appropriately on the frontend of the webpage. Think of HTML as the raw material and CSS as the polisher to style the content in such a way that it appears in such a way that is intended to be seen. Right from slick colors, interesting fonts, and background images, everything is included in CSS. In simple words, the language affects the entire mood and tone of a web page – a crucial skill for web developers to consider.

JavaScript – Again used to control the behavior of different elements; JavaScript is way more complicated than HTML and CSS used to modify website content and make it behave in different ways in response to a user’s actions. Some of its common uses include confirmation boxes, calls-to-action, adding new identities to existing information.

In simple words, JavaScript is one such programming language that allows professionals to come up with interactive sites. In case, if you happen to encounter any dynamic behavior such as security password creation, check forms, interactive games, animations, any kind of special effects; it is because of JavaScript.

Work Experience
Being a well-rounded PHP developer means having good work experience. So check the level; is it junior, mid-level, and senior designer. A lesser engineer has zero to two years of experience through a mid-level encounter has two to four years of experience and a senior designer has five to eight years of experience remembering broad experience for taking care of issues of different complexities.

Testing Experience
Many PHP development service providers say that one shouldn’t mock what they don’t own. But in a test case scenario, what you don’t own cannot be constructed for use. Therefore, it becomes very crucial to test just to make sure that the third-party code works well. Another crucial thing developers often forget is that tests themselves need to be refactored too. Plus it requires practice and sooner you will start recognizing patterns in the process. For that you must be using factory methods, data providers, prepare some things in the setup () method and move technical details out of the way by introducing facade methods.

Does he possess an adaptive approach
Intending to enable teams to quickly and effectively adapt the change, adaptive software development (ASD) approach is quite a buzz these days. However, it is the direct outgrowth of the agile framework and rapid application development (RAD). Speculate, collaborate, and learn; these are the three major phases of ASD. Now with so many frameworks support, PHP is flexible enough to cope with continuous evolving aspects. Therefore, make sure that you choose a PHP developer who has the capability and openness to adapt to changing technical environments. Some of its strengths include:

• Focused on end-users, which can lead to better and more intuitive products
• Allows for on-time and even early delivery
• Encourages more and more transparency between developers as well as clients

MySQL Performance Tuning
Any business owner would love to create a dynamic website that not just caters to the basic needs of their clients but also performs better database optimization. SQL is a special-purpose programming language used to store, manipulate a wide range of functional database operations such as creating, updating, and deleting data. Why must your programmer use MySQL Performance tuning?

• Firstly, it allows them to avoid over-provisioning and reducing costs by right-sizing your servers.
• Secondly, you also get accurate insights into whether to move data storage or add server capacity to improve in terms of performance

However, not all PHP development enthusiasts are technically competent to facilitate this. So make sure to look for someone who has proper technical know-how about optimizing your database.

Try different recruitment models
Hiring the best PHP developer can be insanely tricky at times but it is important no matter what. Fortunately, we have a plethora of recruitment models which can be adhered to:

• On-demand recruitment – Here recruiters work based on an hourly or project basis. In other words, you do have the right to enroll or remove any professional whenever you feel like. Consider it more like renting someone to do your job for a specific time period. Being flexible is its main advantage plus it acts as a supplement to your in-house recruiting function instead of replacement.
• Contingency hiring – Another widely used recruitment model that works based on a specific bunch of terms and conditions agreed with the clients in prior.
• Retained search – Here the recruiter works on the basis of agreement relationship exceptionally for vital hunt tasks. Plus, they also perform closely with most appropriate candidates to assist you in finding the necessary range of abilities for the current task.

Critical thinking & problem solving
This is an applicable cognitive skill that most people use in building information, recognizing designs, figuring contentions and taking care of issues. Pick a PHP engineer who can make claims and bolster them with legitimate proof. He should likewise have the option to distinguish choices for a decision to express standards for assessing those choices. Also, finally, he should have the option to get the key inquiry in an issue, to create potential designs for understanding, to finish on those plans and to assess both the achievement of the plan and the solution.

Effective communication skills
Hands down! This one is a no-brainer! An effective communicator who is able to pass information to other people who listens to them may be vocal, written manner using printed documents, books, magazines, websites, visuals such as videos, maps, charts, or even non-verbally with the body language, gesture etc. And this is one such skill that may take a lifetime to master. As a PHP developer, you hire will be responsible for not just analyzing but even testing and debugging errors. Moreover, he will have to play a mediator with different in-house design teams and your clients. Choose the one who is just lucid in communicating and knows how to be professional.

That’s a Wrap!

With greater availability of PHP developers comes greater responsibility. Keep all the aforementioned pointers in mind and do proper research before selecting a PHP developer for your business. Moreover, you can contact eTatvaSoft – a reliable PHP development company that offers unmatched solutions like never before.