6 Key Skills PHP developers must possess

by JONATHAN PAUL Jonathan Paul working at PHPProgrammers, a leading

When it comes to choosing PHP developers, you need to consider several factors and skills. Here’s an article that shares the 6 key skills you need to consider before choosing to hire PHP developers for your web project.

PHP is the most popular and widely used server-side scripting language when it comes to web development. PHP is open-source, affordable, flexible, easy to learn and maintain, well-documented, has strong community support, supports a wide range of frameworks like Laravel, Symfony, CakePHP, Yii, CodeIgniter, and more, and comes with tons of in-built classes and functions that makes coding easier, faster, and more organised. According to w3schools, PHP powers over 81.3 percent of the websites today including MailChimp, Facebook, Zoom, Wikipedia, and Tumblr just to name a few. Moreover, the language frequently gets upgraded and comes up with new and improved features and functionalities. These are also the reasons why most entrepreneurs planning to take their businesses online on the web choose to hire PHP developers over the other web development languages or technologies.

And with this increasing popularity and demand for PHP development, the number of PHP developers also increased and you can find millions of developers around you now. But do you think all the developers are equally skilled and can ensure to deliver the same quality project utilising the best of the language? No. And this makes it crucial to look for PHP developers with the right skills and abilities.

Now, the very basic and first thing you need to consider while choosing your PHP developer is the basic set of skills. The professional must be a master in the fundamentals of the language like the usage of the classes and functions, knowledge of the PHP frameworks, familiarity with the features of PHP’s latest version, etc. And apart from these basic skills, you need to consider some more crucial factors that are shared below in this article.

The skills your PHP developer must possess are as follow.

Knowledge of other web development programming languages:

Knowing just PHP is not enough to become a skilled PHP developer. As a proficient developer, it is necessary to have a strong grasp of other related web development languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for designing a creative front-end and for efficiently developing the back-end. Moreover, having in-depth knowledge of databases like MySQL, SQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL is also necessary for PHP development. All, these skills can make a developer more reliable, proficient, skilled, and capable PHP developer who can ensure to meet all your PHP development needs making the best use of the language and the other related languages and technologies.

Proficiency in PHP best practices and design patterns:

Design patterns are very useful in PHP web development. The design patterns can ensure to enhance and speed up the development process by providing repeatable solutions to complex and common problems. These design patterns can also improve the code readability and make it easier for the other developers to recognise and understand the patterns being used. When it comes to PHP development, some of the commonly used design patterns are Strategy, Factory, and Singleton, though there are plenty of more options on the list.

Familiarity with the PHP Composer, PHPUnit, and PSR:

These are some popular and important PHP development tools that you must be aware of and have proficiency in. The PHP Composer is the dependency manager that takes care of the classes, libraries, and functions being used in the project and allows you to install different versions of classes, functions, and libraries easily as per the project requirements. The Composer also checks for newer versions of these and updates them as per the requirement.

The PSR or PHP Standard Recommendation is the PHP specification that’s designed to standardise the PHP programming concepts and enhance the interoperability of the frameworks and PHP components. The PSR is published by the PHP-FIG or the PHP Framework Interoperability Group and currently, there are 13 accepted standards with each one serving a different purpose and function. Developers must learn these standards and follow the same to ensure reduced unnecessary variations in the code.

The PHPUnit is a unit testing framework that allows automated testing or testing of smaller chunks or segments of codes against unexpected results. Testing small units of codes is a good practice and can be done in a TDD or Test Driven Development approach in which the tests are set up before the code is written.

Good communication skills:

Even if you are an expert in PHP development but do not know how to maintain easy and effective communication with clients then you cannot be considered a professional and reliable PHP developer. Ensuring the clients easy and quick communication through phone, chat, or email and providing regular work updates to the clients are important. Good communication skills are included in the list of the top skills of an ideal developer.

Adaptability:

When you are using the PHP programming language, you must have the ability to adapt and learn new things easily. PHP continues to evolve and that makes it necessary to have adaptability skills. You should always be up-to-date with the latest versions of the language.

Having proficiency and mastery in PHP development is important to create winning web solutions using the language and its related technologies. And, these skills and abilities can make you a highly proficient and well-versed PHP developer.

Jonathan Paul is a dedicated and expert PHP developer associated with the top PHP development company in Australia, PHPProgrammers. The author has written this article to let you know the key skills and abilities that you need to consider while choosing to hire PHP developers for your next web development project.