Hiring PHP developers: Are PHP skills alone sufficient?

Question

We are looking for people with decent PHP skills. Even though they are intended to program most of the time in PHP, I'm not sure that php experience alone is enough. Maybe I'm wrong but I cannot resist to hold that any good php developer eventually have become proficient in php programming because he learnt a more fundamental language like C/C++ beforehand.

Because of this preoccupation I want to recruit PHP programmers who are also decent programmers in Java,C or C++. Would you think this is reasonable?

Answer 1

Yes, I've used the exact same policy, but I'd do the same if I was recruiting C++ developers, or .Net developers. If you only know how to use hammers, everything looks like a nail etc. The more useful people know how to select the right tool for the job!

Answer 2

I've learned PHP without any knowledge of C/++ beyond the base syntax. If you were looking for PHP developers, I'd suggest that you look for ones with experience with PHP and the ins and outs of that language, not a different yet similar language.

Answer 3

If you are looking for a PHP programmer, I would focus on their PHP skills. If you are looking for a programmer who needs more than PHP to get the job done (whether that be strong fundamentals in Object Oriented Design or some other facet of software engineering), include that in your search criteria.

Answer 4

Anything could be seen as a bonus. If someone understands "C, C++, C#, JavaScript and PHP", that may be seen as better than "JavaScript and PHP" only. It can be a technology that you'll need in the future, or maybe just a sign that such programmer is more willing to learn other things and therefore won't become obsolete(when something new comes along, programmers ought to know it, even if they worked on something else for years).

It really depends on what programmers you have available to hire. (which came to job interviews)

In second place, what you want to do is essential! What type of website? In many websites, XML, CSS and SQL may be important technologies as well.

Having used PHP for a while, I never actually needed to combine it with C nor Java, but my needs may be different than yours.

Conclusion:

• It depends on who you have available to hire
• It depends on your needs
• But the more the merrier

Answer 5

Also it might be handy to look for people who have worked with functional languages, since programing in those languages does help a lot when working with your main language.

Answer 6

I think language proficiency is less important than conceptual knowledge, problem-solving skills, and the ability to accurately describe the problem being coded.

Languages are easy to learn.

The concepts and the modes of thinking which make a programmer a good-to-great one are much harder to learn; and some folks won't ever do so.

Sure, if your programmer knows PHP and that's your primary programming language, all the better, as that saves you the two-three weeks necessary to get said programmer up to speed.

But, someone that has been building user-to-db forms in PHP for 5 years, despite being technically proficient in PHP, may be less than useless when it comes to actually determining what needs to be done in an application.

Answer 7

Last time I hired a new co-worker, he only had experience in PHP, he even had quit school and was very young, so his actual experience was limited, given his years of work in the field. Based on these facts, would you hire this person? Most peoples first thought would be probably not.

Well, today he's not just a PHP developer, but went from Lucene over to Solr and nowadays he even develops internal Plug-Ins for the latter and is in general also our Java-Wit, Maven Guru and lays the foundation when we need internal tools, for various reasons, in Java.

So what's the deal with PHP here? He fluently writes it like Java, sometimes you can't distinguish one from the other. Adopting to unknown things, like working into Zend Framework stuff, is natural to him.

But then, he has programming as his hobby (which many have, I guess), too. Writing stuff like compilers in his spare time, etc. Quick adopter, I would call that.

On the other hand, I'm really preparing myself for interviews, discussing with other co-workers things which are relevant and observe people reacting to certain questions in the interview.

Oh, and you as a an interviewer need also one thing badly: luck.

Answer 8

Ok, this might be a controversial opinion but what's new?

I would be hesitant to hire anybody who has only done PHP.

Now I like PHP. I've been using it a lot lately (whereas I'm traditionally a Java man). But it is so loosely structured that you can make some real abominations if you're so inclined or, more to the point, you simply don't know any better.

For example I'm rewriting some 300,000 lines of PHP code. That's just raw text lines, not TLOCs. Anyway, with 90-95% feature coverage my version is currently sitting at under 15,000 lines. Why? The previous version was heavily cut and pasted, made little use of functions, etc.

Now you can make those mistakes in any language. In my experience however you are far less inclined to make those mistakes if you've had experience in programming in Java, C# or (in particular) C/C++ (where lack of structure/organisation will bury you).

Also, anyone who has only ever done PHP is far more likely to be what I call a cowboy or a "script kiddie". If this offends any 100% PHP developers, I'm sorry but it's true. Note that I'm saying it's not always the case but there is a high incidence.

Answer 9

The language doesn't matter. What matters is, do they know how to think and do they know how to learn. Hire someone who is genuinely intelligent and you will have succeeded.

Answer 10

As for using C, C++ as an indicator of wide ranging skills and interests, I'll look more at dynamic languages (python, ruby, java) for that. Web sites are rarely built in C++ these days - what you want is someone comfortable with the various ways of building websites.

And take a look at code he's written. You'll know if it smells.

Answer 11

I don't think that by looking for people with Java/C/C++ skills as well as PHP necessarily means you will end up hiring a better developer.

In fact, it's not true that you need experience in any other language. Sure, it'd be an indicator of wider experience but nothing more.

I would concentrate on your questioning during the interview. Ask basic PHP syntax questions, ask about good practices, ask about design patterns, ask about writing secure web apps. And so on. Get a broad range of questions in and gauge the experience from that.

Only having one language on your CV might mean that the candidate is lazy and can't be bothered to move out of their comfort zone or it might mean that they love that language and they have used it so much and so thoroughly that they totally own it.

Answer 12

Having, at the very least, exposure to numerous languages tells you that the person is obviously motivated to learn. I work at a php shop, and at the very least knowing php, sql, shell scripting, and java is a minimum.