A Comprehensive Guide to Hiring PHP Engineering Teams

In previous articles, we talked a lot about hiring a PHP developer and it is a tough job. Hiring PHP engineering teams can be a next-level difficulty. In this article, we’re going to cover when and how you should hire the PHP engineering teams. However, if you need help selecting the right company, tell us what you need. We can do the work for you and connect you with up to 5 companies within 72h that match your need- all for free.

When to Hire

Don’t hire too early!!! One of the most important points to keep in mind is that you should never start hiring PHP engineering teams in the early stages of your business. Beginning as a small business means you won’t initially have a constant flow of projects to justify getting that engineering team.

Developers are expensive and engineering teams are much more expensive than single developers. You can get developers at per project price or fixed price but this is not the case with PHP engineering teams. These teams normally have each of their developers on a fixed salary which can increase pricing significantly.

Timing can be crucial, and it is also important not to wait too long to hire. It takes time to find a PHP engineering team that fits your budget and goals. Starting the hiring process too late is a common mistake that leads to only considering the current ongoing PHP projects that need attention. It is important to consider having time to look for future projects and to scale your team accordingly. We have already covered an article entitled: Should You Hire PHP development Freelancers or a Remote PHP team? In which we walk you through the differences between PHP freelancers and Remote PHP teams which can help give you an idea of when to start looking for PHP engineering teams.

When is the right time to hire PHP engineering teams? We suggest you establish yourself in the market and build a client base first. This process takes some time but also ensures that you’ll have enough cash inflow to pay for the PHP engineering teams.

Many people will suggest that you always save some backup funds. Another suggestion is to keep a varied portfolio of concurrent projects to create a varied source of income, where one project can front costs for another if it’s liquidity temporarily stagnates. This will help to cover the cost of the team by essentially not putting all your fabled eggs in the one fabled basket.

Reviewing Their Previous Experience

You should know who you’re working with right? It is advisable to review which other clients the PHP engineering teams worked for, as well as what kind of projects were being developed with these clients.

Every PHP engineering team proudly shares their client list to gain the trust of their potential clients and most of them are very open with discussing their previous projects (as long as they’re not bound by any form of a non-disclosure agreement). Would it not be preferable to have a team that specializes in precisely the sort of website you are looking to create? Do you prefer a team with a varied background of experience to allow you the flexibility to pivot towards another kind of project?

Asking yourself these questions can help you hone into the right team for your projects by showing you if the team has already dealt with similar projects.

PHP Frameworks

There are a lot of frameworks available for PHP and many PHP engineering teams also create their own frameworks. Given that PHP developers in a team heavily contribute to each other’s code, they sometimes create their own frameworks personalized to their particular workflow, instead of depending on a third-party framework.

This can have its advantages and disadvantages. Personalized frameworks can lead to PHP developers being unfamiliar with third-party frameworks or can lock you into one team of developers because external teams of developers would be unfamiliar with the original team’s personal framework.

On the other hand, developers who have built everything from scratch will be able to work much faster on their framework and will have more flexibility when building web applications.

PHP comes with a lot of pros and cons but sticking only to one framework can harm your upcoming projects. A development team with the right combination of team members to be able to work on any given framework, or with at least interest and motivation towards learning new frameworks will always bring a competitive advantage to the table.

Who to Hire

Hiring a PHP engineering team consisting of only senior-level PHP developers can result in a prohibitive price tag because the experience is directly proportional to the pricing. A team should be made up of a balanced combination of senior, mid, and junior level PHP developers.

Senior-level PHP developers mostly manage and work on the architecture level of the project. Their goal is to make everything smooth and they are responsible for the complete workflow of the project. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t code. They code and write functions although they’re more focused on leading and managing the mid-level and junior engineers on their team to keep the project on track.

Junior-level developers can be an asset in the long run. But who's gonna train them? This is where mid-level developers come into play. Working hand in hand, these two levels of engineers should handle most of the coding for your project.

Having a perfect ratio of the developers in your team is very important. It not only helps you to budget your project but also creates a healthy environment between the developers.

Budgeting

Write down your budget and split it into different levels of developers. It is very important for any PHP project to have a clear and developed budget. This will allow you to track all your expenses and make sure they don’t run into your profits. You do not want to hire a PHP engineering team that’s charging $5000 only to realize halfway through the project that you could only afford $3000.

Bargaining and negotiation can play a very important role here to allow you to stretch your budget to get some higher-end PHP engineering teams. Remember that many developers will offer initial quotes that allow for some flexibility when it comes down to closing the deal.

Don’t Only Focus on Technical Skills

The technical skills of your PHP developers are very important, but soft skills can be equally or even more important. There might be situations when the PHP engineering team comes directly into contact with your clients, and the last thing you would want is to lose the client because your engineers didn’t know how to present themselves. The right soft skills will go a long way towards making sure those technical skills are correctly applied and used to their fullest potential.

Referrals can save you time

Referrals are the best source to find PHP engineering teams. You may have friends, colleagues, or even relatives who are already working with PHP developers. This can save you a lot of time because these developers will already have a positive track record with people you trust, thereby shortening the hiring process.

If your reference list is coming up short, however, or you feel none of your friends and colleagues seem entirely satisfied about working with the PHP developers they know - remember we are here to help! If you need help selecting the right company, tell us what you need. We can do the work for you and connect you with up to 5 companies within 72h that match your need- all for free.

Don’t settle for less

It is important to communicate your expectations from the beginning to make sure your team will be able to build any web application your project requires. Don’t hold back, the client is always right, and clear communication will enable you to hire a team that can live up to your expectations.

There is no shortage of PHP developers, which means you may end up investing a lot of time and energy in shortlisting and interviewing your candidates. Make sure that these resources are not wasted on a compromise and that your final hires meet all your benchmarks be it in tech, soft skills, or experience.

You may want to try to filter some of your weaker candidates before the interview process. The following structure might help in making sure precious interview time is spent only on the most compelling picks:

• Experience Shortlisting
• Portfolio Shortlisting
• Beginner Level Tech Quiz related to PHP
• Advanced Level Questionnaire/Assignment related to PHP
• Final PHP job interview

If you set up the previous filters during your hiring process, you should have narrowed down the pool to only the most capable candidates for the final interviews. We have published an article on Hiring PHP Developers - Best Practices & Job Description Template, which can help you to hire the best PHP developers for your team.

Compensation and Perks

With so much demand for programming skills in today’s business environment, a competitive salary is an essential element to obtain and retain the best talent out there. However, having the biggest wallet isn’t always what gets you the prize, there are other perks and quality of life considerations that can give you a competitive edge.

Your employees will only feel compensation one day of the month, but perks can start to make a difference and become a constant in their life from day one. For example, giving them free food coupons, having a continuous learning approach, or offering flexible work hours can all play very important roles in your employees' quality of life and personal development.

It is important to mention any perks you are prepared to offer in the job description to stand out from the crowd to PHP developers looking for new opportunities. PHP is a future proof language that can be applied to many cases, but web applications can’t be built using only PHP, they also require databases, frontend technologies, and testing among other things. Therefore, it is to be expected that a developer who is skilled in these other technologies should receive corresponding compensation, given that they are able to integrate other steps of your development process, eliminating the need for further hires.

Final Words

There will be many things to manage when hiring a PHP engineering team, given that it is a multi-level hiring process where you must try to strike a harmonious balance among the team members. An unharmonious team dynamic can affect the productivity of even the most diligent of developers. As a team manager you can play a large role in finding and maintaining this harmonious balance, we have covered many of the do’s and don’ts in our article about how to manage a remote team.