I see countless posts and questions by new developers who want to break into the PHP development world. A common question is What is the best way to gain PHP experience? Common answers are to build up a github profile, start blogging, internships or pro-bono work. Yeah that sounds great but for someone who is truly green that may be a little outside of their comfort zone If it is for someone looking to learn relevant skills to break into the job market the advice is a little vague. Most of the advice given online is from the hobbyist’s perspective and not from the perspective of someone who has a mortgage to pay and a family to take care of. Below is a list of options a new php developer should take to gain experience that will hopefully land you that first PHP Web Development job.
CMS or FrameWork
I recommend picking either a CMS or a Framework. Please choose one of the popular options listed below. Stay away from small lesser known frameworks unless you want to code for fun then please do. The goal of this advice is to get the new developer into the job market faster. A quick search on indeed.com for a framework or CMS in your area will give you an idea of what Job Skills are in demand.
ZEND - (http://framework.zend.com/)
Tutorials - Good Luck.
Pros:
- High Salary - Low Supply of PHP Developers with Zend Experience
- Job Security - very few PHP developers take on the challenge of learning Zend
Cons:
- Extremely High Learning Curve
- Used mainly by enterprise business - ( This could be a plus if you are looking for stability. Just be prepared for the corporate lifestyle. )
Symfony - (http://symfony.com/)
Tutorials
- Tuts Plus
- KNP University
- Screenfony
- The Symfony Book
Pros:
- High Salary
- Lots of Documentation
- Very Large Community
Cons:
- High Learning Curve
Laravel - (http://laravel.com/)
Tutorials
- Tuts Plus
- Laracasts
- medium.com
Pros:
- Low Learning Curve
- Lots of Documentation
- Large and Growing Community
Cons:
A relative newcomer to the php framework there are fewer employers looking for developers with Laravel experience. Other Frameworks:
- YII
- Silex
- Slim
- CakePHP
- auraphp
- Phalcon
- Wordpress - (http://wordpress.org/)
Tutorials
- Tuts Plus
- wp101
- Lynda.com
Pros:
- Low Learning Curve
- Lots of Documentation
- Large Community
- Low barrier to entry for Jobs
Cons
- Low paying entry level jobs
- Wordpress Developers are expected to be a Jack of All Trades - Frontend and Backend
- Hated by PHP Elitists
Drupal - (https://www.drupal.org/)
Tutorials
- Tuts Plus
- Durpalize ME
- Lynda.com
Pros:
- Low Learning Curve
- Lots of Documentation
- Large and Growing Community
Cons:
- Low paying entry level jobs ( But they do increase nicely with experience )
- Drupal Developers are expected to be a Jack of All Trades - Frontend and Backend
- Hated by PHP Elitists
- Drupal 8 is changing a lot of the under the hood code - So beware you will have to learn two versions of the CMS to enter the Job Market as you will have to maintain Drupal 7 and build out new Drupal sites with Drupal 8.
- Joomla - (http://www.joomla.org/)
- Tutorials -
- Tuts Plus
- SiteGround
- Lynda.com
Pros:
- Low Learning Curve
- Lots of Documentation
- Large and Growing Community
Cons:
- Low paying entry level jobs
- Joomla Developers are expected to be a Jack of All Trades - Frontend and Backend
- Hated by PHP Elitists
Certifications
-
PHP Certification: (http://www.zend.com)
-
MYSQL Certification: (http://education.oracle.com)
-
COMP TIA Linux Certification: (http://certification.comptia.org)
Unicorn Skills That will be required - (Somehow through magic)
- Linux - (https://linuxacademy.com/linux)
- Apache - lamp-stack
- Nginx - Scaling PHP
- Git Version control - (https://try.github.io) , (https://www.codeschool.com/courses/try-git)
- HTML5 - (http://html5doctor.com/)
- CSS 2 and 3 - (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference)
- JavaScript - (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript)
- Jquery
- Jquery UI
- At least one JavaScript Framework
- Angular JS
- Backbone JS
- Ember JS
- htaccess - (http://htaccessbook.com/)
- Photoshop - Yes PM’s will expect you to also be a designer for some reason.
- UI/UX - Yes PM’s will expect you to also be a designer for some reason.
- Unit Testing - (http://phpunit.de/) or Chris Hartjes will destroy you.
- PHP Composer - Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP.
- PHP Code Standards - (http://www.php-fig.org/)
- REST - Restful Web Apis
- PHP Security - Building Secure PHP Apps
Sample Projects
You will need to complete a few sample projects to get a few of the basic skills required for an entry level developer.
- Build a CMS - If you choose to take the framework route you will more than likely be asked to build a small custom cms.
- Pages
- Posts
- File management
- User management
- Sitemap Generator
- Menu Management
- Build a Web Scraper - When transferring old sites to a cms. You will need to have the skills below to make the process easier.
- Scrape Links from a website
- Scrape Content from a website
- API - API integration is all the rage. A must have for any web developer.
- Google Analytics
- Salesforce
- Build a Custom Plugin for the CMS of your choice.
- Build a Custom Theme for the CMS of your choice. ( Use themeforest for inspiration )
- Stock Bootstrap Theme
- Stock Foundation Theme
- CSS Dropdown menus and Flyout Menus - PM’s love these
- Crazy CSS Animations - PM’s love these
- JQuery Animations - PM’s love these
- Sliders - PM’s love these
Conclusion
There is a lot to learn to get into the web development world and it grows more and more everyday. Do not get overwhelmed , no one person can know everything. Focus on what you find enjoyable and continue to learn from there. The Web Development Journey is one that never ends. There is always more to learn. Try to drown out the hype and focus on yourself and follow Chris Coyier’s advice Just Build Websites .