How to Hire a Dedicated PHP Development Team

To create software in the 2000s, business owners had to either hire developers on staff or outsource them for a particular project. As for today, there are many more models of cooperation with IT specialists. In particular, we are talking about hiring a dedicated PHP developer, combining the best features of in-office hiring and outsourcing. Below, we'll discuss the benefits of hiring dedicated PHP web programmers, as well as how to hire PHP developers who're best in the field.

First, let's look at the specifics and responsibilities of a dedicated PHP team, as well as skills required by each of its members.

Roles and Responsibilities

In a nutshell, when you hire a dedicated core PHP developer, you get a specialist with almost the same responsibilities as an in-house one. The first one, as a rule, works from the office of the software development company, not in the office of a product owner. At the same time, product owners get a team of PHP developers who are responsible for their projects only. Unlike freelancers, they never work simultaneously on several projects at once, but devote all their working time to develop a PHP-based solution for a specific customer.

If we talk about the responsibilities in detail, it makes sense to distinguish three main tasks for dedicated PHP developers: the creation, deployment, and maintenance of the project. In particular, the dedicated PHP development team goes through the entire life cycle of a software solution from start to finish: from identifying technical and non-technical project requirements, to release and optimization.

At the same time, they are always in touch with the product owner, who ensures their best productivity and controls workflows, which is identical to in-house teams. As a result, owners always receive software products of the highest quality. However, they do not have to bother with finding talent, their employment, onboarding, and other aspects that accompany the process of hiring specialists in staff.

As for the roles of your dedicated team, if you are going to use PHP as your main product development technology, you will need a project manager (PM), team lead, several software developers and testers, UI/UX designer, and optionally a business analyst on the team. In very small teams, the same specialist can perform several roles at once.

Skills

The main requirement for dedicated PHP developers is knowledge of the programming language itself and the PHP frameworks for working with it. Knowledge of JavaScript, CSS, HTML5, NoSQL, MySQL, and OOP is also welcome, as well as experience with Git. In addition, a developer must have skills in creating software that complies with industry and generally accepted security standards, as well as must understand how to integrate with third-party software solutions seamlessly.

When it comes to soft skills, the Indeed job platform highlights ten key characteristics for you to identify a good specialist who is good for work in a team: reliability, humility, etiquette, neatness, consideration, dedication, organization, accountability, integrity, and expertise.

After identifying the distinguishing characteristics of PHP dedicated developers, it is time to find out what practical benefits the business owners get from this collaborative model.

High ROI

Businesses need to develop digitally without distracting from main business tasks to ensure high competitiveness. One of the most effective solutions is launching a website, web application, or web portal (for internal corporate needs of business clients) with the help of the dedicated PHP development team.

The PHP programming language is one of the most cost-effective solutions for implementing this business idea. W3Tech statistics confirm this: currently, about 77.4 percent of websites and web applications are based on PHP. This programming language is stable and quite flexible, and the solutions created with its help scale well. We can add to that a low entry threshold and hence a wide pool of PHP developers who will be a part of your development department. All these factors make PHP the best for transferring web development responsibilities to a dedicated team.

Good turnaround time for the project delivery

Another great benefit when you hire a dedicated PHP expert is that they deliver the final product in the shortest possible time and for the lowest possible budget. The advantages of the PHP programming language and the working capacity are what make it possible. In fact, you get full-fledged employees for your project, but they will work in the office of this company.

Highly qualified and experienced specialists in your team

Companies that provide dedicated team services typically choose professionals who have experience in developing projects for the client's business niche. This factor not only speeds up the product launch process, but also ensures that the created solution fully complies with industry standards.

Business-oriented collaboration

Unlike freelancers, dedicated teams are involved in working only on a client's project throughout their working hours. They also carefully study the product owner's business goals and values to create not just a high-quality product, but a solution that could help achieve and share them.

Unlike offshore PHP developers, dedicated developers interact more closely with product owners and their in-office teams. That is why this collaboration model is ideal for narrow-focused businesses.

Despite the obvious benefits of working with a team of PHP developers, it is important to note that these advantages, unfortunately, do not apply to all professionals who consider themselves to be such. Let's figure out how to hire dedicated PHP programmers with top expertise.

Defining business goals

The first thing you have to do is to define the business goals you want to achieve with the release of your project. This will be the starting point for your future partnership with a dedicated team of PHP developers because that's how you can understand what stack of technologies (in addition to PHP) and programming languages should be on their resume.

It is also crucial for you to decide what kind of work experience each team member should have. For example, overpaying for a team that includes only senior PHP developers is unnecessary if you need to build a simple website.

So let's start with juniors. These are the most cost-efficient specialists with basic programming skills. They usually cope with the tasks set by the team leader, but do not have enough knowledge for independent decision-making.

Next, let’s consider the mid-level specialists. They are suitable for limited-budget websites or web apps that do not require highly-specialized expertise. In the vast majority of cases, the team can only get by with juniors and mid-levels.

As for senior PHP developers, in addition to 6+ years of experience in working with a PHP programming language, they must have industry knowledge and skills. Optionally, they must know some new technologies that may be useful in implementing the particular project (for example, for CMS development). They may also have related specialities: for example, your candidate may be an experienced web designer. The participation of such specialists in the development process provides businesses with a competitive advantage.

Building a list of tools

Once you've decided on your business goals, you need to make a rough list of technologies and tools to help your team implement your business idea (the most popular PHP frameworks are Laravel, Symfony, Codeigniter, CakePHP, and Yii). These are only several options since you may not have sufficient expertise to determine the list of technical requirements.

Setting software development goals

Now you need to identify the goals of your future software solution. This concerns the functionality, methods, and requirements for data exchange between the end user and the created product, integrations, compliance with industry standards, hosting (in the cloud or locally), etc.

Looking for candidates

Finding candidates on freelance platforms is not the best idea. Typically, the services of dedicated teams are provided by companies specializing in this. They can be found in organic Google searches and the lists of companies presented on Upwork-like websites.

Interviewing

Along with checking candidates on your corporate values, you should test them for knowledge of the technology stack you need. If you are unsure whether you can conduct such an interview personally (or someone from your staff can do it), use a service like TestGorilla.

Hiring and onboarding

Once you have selected developers for your dedicated team, you will need to sign a contract with them (e.g., NDA) and familiarize them with your company's workflows.

First, you have to figure out what the budget for your project will be. For this, you need to consider:

• hidden costs (hosting expenses, maintenance, code refactoring, updating – all these additional costs will overtake you after the software development process is completed, and will be regular as long as your software exists);
• unpredictable overtime (it is always better to calculate the duration of the development process in a pessimistic manner, taking into account possible holidays/sick days of your team members, and other factors that may delay the product launch date);
• chosen line-up (you have to understand what composition of the development team - juniors, middles, seniors - will be the most effective for your project: the cost of services of a senior specialist will be many times more expensive than the services of a junior, however, you may need for your project the expertise of the first one).

To prevent these unexpected costs, you need to capture your project deadlines, your contractors' rates, and the scope of work in the form of a documented timeline estimate. If at the beginning of the project you cannot understand exactly how long it will take to implement it, make an estimate with the possibility of adding new tasks and time frames, as well as discuss with your team the possibility of implementing tools to control working hours (for example, a time tracker).

By the way, developer rates deserve special attention in the problem of overpriced projects. In essence, the pricing for the development services of PHP developers varies from one location to another. For example, in the USA, Canada, Australia, and some EU countries, the price tag for PHP development is the highest (according to the data of ARC.dev, the average hourly rate of PHP engineers is $61-80).

Therefore, you can start looking for needed specialists in Eastern Europe to get web and app development services with the same quality and save up to two times the planned budget.

If you want to hire remote developers, ask us! We will do our best to bring your business idea to life.

EPAM Startups & SMBs is a software development company that offers its services to small and medium-sized businesses. Being a subsidiary of the EPAM company with 30+ of experience in the international market, EPAM Startups & SMBs provides companies with the best IT specialists in all existing IT niches to work on their digital solutions.

Thus, hiring a dedicated PHP team at EPAM Startups & SMBs instead of in-office software engineers, part-time local developers, or freelancers will ensure the maximum cost efficiency, reliability, and fast launch of the product.

We always follow high corporate standards in our projects and apply the best management practices. Thanks to this, our clients always get high-quality, scalable, and easily upgradeable software solutions, which in the long term ensure the high competitiveness of the client's business.

Let's summarize. When you hire dedicated PHP developers, you get high ROI, good turnaround time for the project delivery, business-oriented collaboration, and, of course, highly qualified and experienced specialists in your team. Thus, your main task with this model of cooperation rests on the choice of worthy specialists with optimal rates. Therefore, be patient and start looking for your ideal team with an all-star line-up!

To sum up, now we propose you consider the answers related to the question: “How do I hire a PHP dedicated developer?”