Some general questions about working as a PHP coder

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Working with PHP

I am a full-time PHP programmer, and it's pretty cool
19
46%
I am a full-time PHP programmer, and it sucks
2
5%
I take contracts, and it's pretty cool
11
27%
I take contracts, and it sucks
0
No votes
I do it as a hobby, and come here for help and best practices
9
22%
 
Total votes: 41

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PrObLeM
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Re: Some general questions about working as a PHP coder

Post by PrObLeM »

GM wrote: 1) How many of you are full-time employed as PHP (or indeed "General Web") coders?
Full-time here. (well minus the time when I'm in classes)
GM wrote: 4) How much experience have you got with PHP? What's the minimum experience you feel is necessary before a potential employer takes you seriously?
I've been working at my current job for almost 3 years now, I've been doing PHP for about 5. And PHP isn't the only thing that employers look at, many times they want people with other technical skills.
GM wrote: 5) Is it a good idea to do small free projects to build a portfolio?
Yes, a lot of places won't event talk to you. You can't just go into a place and say "I KNOW PHP HIRE ME NOW!" they need see something so they know your not <span style='color:blue' title='I&#39;m naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span> them.
GM wrote: 6) How much do you use other skills during your work (management, marketing, sales etc.)
Quite a bit, mostly right now I'm using a lot of my flash/actionscript skills. That and you have to be able to sell your product to your boss.
GM wrote: 9) What sort of money is in it?
I'm making good money for a college student. (Well, at least I think I am)
GM wrote: 10) Currently PHP is a hobby, which means I do it for pleasure. Do you think that doing it full time would turn it into a bloody nightmare, like my current work is?
It all depends, don't forget to mix it up. Going on an 8 hour coding marathon will kill you. I generally do about 80/20. 80% work 20% fun stuff.
chrisranjana
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php programmers

Post by chrisranjana »

1) How many of you are full-time employed as PHP (or indeed "General Web") coders?
I run a full time web development company called chrisranjana.com
2) To those of you who take contract work, do you ever find yourself in a "between contracts" phase? If so, how long do these phases usually last? Also, what's the average length of a contract?
Well we have projects running all throughout the year.
3) What's the job market like at the moment for PHP/Web programmers? Up/down? Easy to find new work?
Our PHP Programming Quality brings our clients back and has kept us going till date.

4) How much experience have you got with PHP? What's the minimum experience you feel is necessary before a potential employer takes you seriously?
We have got about 6 years experience. You need a minimum of one year php programming experience and should have coded a variety of projects.
5) Is it a good idea to do small free projects to build a portfolio?
It is a good idea to create meaningfull and usefull small projects and you can release them as opensource via sourceforge


6) How much do you use other skills during your work (management, marketing, sales etc.)
Much
7) Do you specialise in a particular business area?


Yes
8) Do you work to a pre-written spec, or do you contribute actively to the specification from the conception to the end?
We do both
9) What sort of money is in it?
I have heard web developers earning quite a lot
10) Currently PHP is a hobby, which means I do it for pleasure. Do you think that doing it full time would turn it into a bloody nightmare, like my current work is?
IT all depends on how well you handle work pressure
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anjanesh
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Post by anjanesh »

Indeed has come up with a nice Salary Comparison.

JSP stands out to be on top while PHP is the lowest ! In fact is far lower than the rest which are at 70 (except for CFM).
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onion2k
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Post by onion2k »

anjanesh wrote:Indeed has come up with a nice Salary Comparison.

JSP stands out to be on top while PHP is the lowest ! In fact is far lower than the rest which are at 70 (except for CFM).
Ouch. That's a horribly, horribly flawed comparison.
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anjanesh
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Post by anjanesh »

can ROR be considered as Ruby on Rails ? Because, so far they have no data on Ruby on Rails, yet ROR shows up as 68K. Can anyone think of anything else for ROR ? Except Resources of a Resource.
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

That appears about right, although I would think that Java and .NET developers would be earning a heap more than others. I can say that my company totally shatters the mold on this survey (/me thanks God) but it seems right for my area.
timvw
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Post by timvw »

Overhere there is much more to earn with Java and .Net.... But i think PHP jobs pay well too.. So you should choose whatever makes you most happy ;)
odinjobs
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PHP Job Market

Post by odinjobs »

Out of around 100 IT skills, PHP ranks 51st as far as demand (number of jobs posted online this year). The median salary of PHP jobs nationwide is about $66K. If you would like to do your own breakdown of PHP jobs by state of metro area using Google Maps, go to http://www.odinjobs.com/PHP_job_market_overview.html

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onion2k
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Re: PHP Job Market

Post by onion2k »

odinjobs wrote:Out of around 100 IT skills, PHP ranks 51st as far as demand (number of jobs posted online this year).
I'm going to take a wild guess here and try to work out how you came to that conclusion.

You wrote (or had someone write for you) an application to collate "required skills" keywords posted in job adverts.
You ran it against a database of current job adverts.
PHP came 51st.

It looks to me like something is very wrong with your data. Let's think about it for a moment.

1. It's taking the "requirements" listed by recruiters. These generally bear no relation to what the job requires, they're a list of things recruiters think potential applicants will search for added so the advert comes up regardless of what the candidate really wants.

2. Whether a PHP job will show up depends where you look. If you take job adverts from the bigger job websites they won't appear very often. This isn't because PHP is unpopular, it's because PHP jobs tend to be with small web development companies who don't use the sort of recruitment companies who advertise on the big sites. A lot of PHP jobs are only advertised on the company website of whoever wants to recruit a developer.

3. You've ignored the fact that a lot of IT job postings (quite rightly) list certain IT skills as requirements no matter what the job is; things like "effective communication skills" and "good problem solving ability". These terms will appear pretty much 100% of the time so it'll look like all the languages appear quite far down the list, making it look like no particular language is in demand at all.

4. Your post implies that you selected 100 IT skills and looked at their popularity. The quality of the results will depend very much on your ability to pick which 100 skills are important. Looking at the "Top Skills" list on your site would indicate "Cognos" or "Peoplesoft" are more in demand than PHP. That sounds awfully unlikely to me.

5. According to the Tiobe index ( http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm ) PHP is the 5th most popular of all programming languages in existence. Your list is practically the opposite of the Tiobe index.

6. I don't have any current stats but I'm pretty sure PHP is still the most widely used language for websites and web applications. Again, your list has some pretty obscure IT skills seemingly more in demand.
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Jonah Bron
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Post by Jonah Bron »

I have my own web development/design business, by encouragement (and financial backing) from my dad. I haven't had any customers, yet (accept for my dad) but I'm not supprised, as my website has only been in existance for about 8 months or so. I have made a blog, about how I learned all this stuff, and all that.
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