How to Hire PHP Programmers

What are your requirements? Do you have a technical background? Are you a going to work alongside your developers, or would you rather send off a specification and get weekly updates? Are you going to manage the project?

If you feel comfortable developing and reviewing code yourself, you may wish to work directly, either with a local or offshore developer.

If not, you may want to look at a larger firm. Ensure that they detail their management, testing and QA processes, and that you’re happy with the way you’ll be working to. Gaps in expectation in these aspects can often lead to dispute and unexpected costs later down the line.

If you choose to work directly with an offshore developer, you may find yourself acting as the project manager and first line tester.

If you have no PHP development experience and don’t feel comfortable in reviewing your own code, you may wish to hire a technical manager, working in your interest to ensure the quality of the work received. When you hire PHP programmers, it’s important to not only verify that the work product meets functional and graphical specification. If there are poor coding or security practices being used, this can pave the way to long term unexpected costs and code refactoring.

Will you need CMS development? i.e. WordPress, Joomla, osCommerce or Drupal? You may want to look at how a CMS product could save you time and cost. Depending on your requirements and how aligned they are with existing CMSs and CMS plugins, a CMS can often speed up development many times over.

Make sure you go out looking for the right firm or individual based on your current position, budget, requirements and expectations. Interview the right people. How do you want to work with a development team? Do you have a full specification? Do you need someone to help you complete your specification? Do you want to work on fixed price or hourly? Fixed price may seem appealing, but hourly often works out cheaper.

Look at testimonials and case studies. Are you able to confirm that the testimonials are legitimate?

Do you feel a good fit with the team? Are they responsive and able to work to your needs? Are there any communication barriers? You may consider a short trial period, allowing you to assess your team before committing to your larger project.

Set up accountability, deadlines, reporting mechanisms and regular reviews. It’s important to work with your developer or development team closely, especially at first. This allows you to catch any potential issues quickly, before extensive time and cost is incurred. If you find the project repeatedly veering off course or that communication barriers are insurmountable, it may that the project needs to be re-evaluated or cancelled  before further time and cost is incurred.

PHP programming projects unfortunately have high failure rates and so the right hiring process and early interventions are critical in keeping things on track. If you want to hire PHP programmers or need consultancy on a web development project, get in touch now. We take the headache out of your hands, offering boutique service at affordable rates.