PHP Developer Jobs are the Hottest EVER!!!
** I’ll preface this by saying that I’m not specifically looking for a new position but I think it is important to be aware of the market that you serve. Even in happy times during my employment, I routinely scan job ads to see the health of the market and to gauge its direction. **
If anecdotal evidence means anything, and sometimes it does… and at the risk of sounding like a teenage girl writing on a myspace page, the PHP job market is literally blasting off! I’ve never seen the market for PHP programmers as strong as it right now in the NYC/Philadelphia region.
While there are lots of PHP jobs in the usual suspects like small start-ups, there also seem to be a number of jobs at established companies and developer shops. I’m also seeing a definite split in PHP jobs where there are both entry level jobs as well as jobs for more experienced people with titles like “Senior PHP Developer” and “PHP Tech Lead.” I can’t remember seeing so many senior PHP positions. The salaries I’m seeing are also at an all time high. Many ads have salary ranges that extend well into 6 figures.
As far as requirements I have seen, there definitely seems to be a shift towards frameworks like Symfony and Zend Framework as well as items specifically mentioning IDEs like Eclipse and Zend Studio. However, I rarely see mention of source code management and unit testing. Hopefully those items were cut from the job ads due to space requirements. 
If you are a PHP developer in the area and are highly experienced, get ready to reap the rewards for your hard work. If you are a hiring manager in the area, prepare to shell out more for top talent.
So what is everyone else seeing in their area with regards to PHP developer jobs?
.
PHP articles
Google Reader
Del.icio.us bookmarks
9 Responses to “PHP Developer Jobs are the Hottest EVER!!!”
By Thomas on May 13, 2008 | Reply
I’m actually a web desiger/developer in the DC area, but I really want to get into PHP coding on a professional level (my job is building templates from PSDs, JavaScript coding, etc. although the title is “web developer”). I know the basics of PHP pretty well and have worked a bit with Drupal (for clients) and CakePHP (for curiosity). What skills should I be confident of and brush up on to get a job as a Junior PHP developer? I know I could probably actually get one now with my resume and experience, but what’s more important to me is to be competitive in the workplace and be up to speed from day one — to make such a job last.
By Rich Zygler on May 13, 2008 | Reply
Thomas,
When I hire PHP devs I require them to create a basic web app prior to the interview and send us the code. The sample app is one that can Create/Retrieve/Update/Delete records from a MySQL database. I leave it up to them how to implement the app but if they use a framework like Cake or Symfony, I expect there to be some whiz-bang features other then the auto-crud those frameworks create. I also love it when candidates have their own site and can show us the code working there. That proves to me they have initiative and they are learning on their own, spending their own money to better their career.
I expect junior PHP folks to have some database creation experience. Part of this is tested with the sample app. Junior candidates don’t have to be DB experts but I’ll give them an example in an interview and ask them to draw up a couple of table designs on the board… usually something like, “show me some tables to store an order and its details in the database when I buy a widget.” I don’t expect it to be perfect as that’s a pretty nerve-racking question in an interview. But I get to see if they have some experience with designing DB structures and I also get to see how they work thru problems firsthand.
Since I’m usually working with Linux, I require some Linux experience for junior devs. Again, I don’t need an expert who can recompile the kernel but if you can tell me how to edit a file in an editor like vi or pico and know a few shell commands, that’s good enough.
Hopefully I’ve given you some homework to work on. Good luck!
By Thomas on May 13, 2008 | Reply
DB is definitely my weakness. I can write CRUD apps, but I always need to check back on the old code I used for the SQL since it never has stuck in my head well. I have a couple sites written in PHP that I run for the Navy and Air Force, but it’s pretty basic stuff (sign up for events, admins log in to download generated Excel reports, plus a couple mail forms and site infrastructure built with includes as a template).
Definitely a Unix geek. I’m stuck on a Mac because my work requires Photoshop and Illustrator, but I’d be running Zenwalk or maybe a KDE distro, and in Vim all the time if I could. Granted, TextMate isn’t too shabby.
Thanks for the advice! I’ll work on my fundamentals and see what the future offers me.
By Daniel on May 13, 2008 | Reply
Granted I’m in a smallish (80k population) town, the market here sucks.
Well, let me rephrase that. There are many PHP dev job opportunities (we have one open) but almost no people to take it up, despite a very large university in town (44k students). Every compsci kid wants to do game development then gets suckered into .NET development.
By Manuel Lemos on May 13, 2008 | Reply
You are right, PHP market is really even hotter than in the past.
I really do not work in PHP consulting. I work full time in the PHPClasses site, but I get a lot of job invitations and requests to recommend PHP professionals. The problem is that most professionals that I could recommend are already busy because there is no shortage of PHP work.
That is why last year I invested on the development of the PHP professionals directory. It is a place where PHP developers looking for jobs can list themselves as available.
http://www.phpclasses.org/professionals
Businesses looking for jobs can easily search for PHP professionals and narrow their search by PHP specific skills, like for instance the PHP frameworks you have experience among many other details.
In a few weeks the site will start making available PHP job postings. The demand is huge as mentioned above.
If you are a PHP professional that is looking for a PHP job or you work on freelance consulting, I recommend that add yourself to the directory in the page above so you expose yourself to the wonderful PHP job market.
By wenbert on May 13, 2008 | Reply
hmmmm… I have been a developer for a few years now. As of the moment I am using Zend Framework. I am confident that I can pretty much make any web app - from database design to implementation, etc. But the thing is, I could never do it without looking at my old docs, codes and online documentation. During interviews, do most interviewers allow the interviewees to use online resources?
By Rich Zygler on May 14, 2008 | Reply
Wenbert,
We require them to create a web app PRIOR to our interview, so they can use any online resources they want.
By James on May 14, 2008 | Reply
Swings and Roundabouts. I’m actively looking for a PHP job here in Adelaide, Australia, and I’ve never seen it slower. 4 PHP jobs posted here in the past 3 months. Terrible. Because it’s so slow, I will most likely be looking for work in Systems Administration simply because there isn’t enough PHP work locally.