Php Jobs
Get Started as a Freelance PHP Developer!
While there are PHP jobs available, there is often a lot of competition for them. Beginning PHP developers often complain that there are no jobs for them since it seems that so many companies hire for Java or ".Net" web development. Entry level PHP jobs can be difficult to find. This is why many PHP developers prefer to freelance. PHP is often the web development platform of choice for small and mid-sized businesses which means that there is plenty of work available for freelance developers.
Thinking about working for yourself can be a little daunting at times. As a freelance developer, you will have to handle sales, accounting, client management and do your development. It certainly takes juggling a lot of roles. The positive aspects more than make up for the extra work. As a freelancer, you will be able to work on projects that excite you, you will gain a wider diversity of experience as a developer and you will be helping other small businesspeople bring their vision into reality. Here are some key things to know or think about to get started as a freelance PHP developer.
Know Your Stuff (And Know When You Don't)
This might seem like obvious advice but often new freelancers bid on jobs that they are not capable of completing. If you hang your shingle out as a freelance developer, make sure you have the skill to be a developer. If you are new to PHP, do some practice development before you try to sell your skills. There are a number of great open source projects to which you could contribute. You'll hone your skills and you'll get feedback from other developers about how to make your code better. Another great way to practice your skills is to develop WordPress plugins.
It is equally important that you know when you don't know how to do something. Businesses can be notoriously bad about leaving important details out of their requests for proposal. This is usually because they do not know or do not have the skills or knowledge needed to ask the right questions. As a freelance developer, it is your responsibility to determine the scope of the work. Requests often make something sound trivial when the reality is that they are either very difficult or completely impossible. Be sure you know the limits of your skill set.
This is important. The image of freelance developers as a group is often hurt by amateur developers who over commit and under deliver. You want to be an asset to the freelance development community so make sure you can provide the service you are selling.
Setting Your Rate
This is another area where new freelancers are often criticized. New freelancers tend to set their rates way too low which leads to an overall perception that it is "cheap" to have something developed in PHP. Many of these same freelancers end up going out of business because their rate was too low to be sustainable. Freelance rates for web development can run anywhere from $30 to $120 per hour. As a freelancer, you will be responsible for paying your own social security and other taxes. This can be as high as 15%. If you've previously worked as a developer, you can use your previous hourly rate as a starting point. I typically add 25% to cover the costs of self-employment taxes, insurance and paid time off. On top of this, you'll want to add a percentage to cover your overhead expenses and provide a profit. You'll also need to consider your market. What are others charging and what is the cost of living like where you are located? These should also affect your rate. I've found it helpful to develop a range of rates. I'll quote a job on the lower end of the range if the job is non-profit and on the higher end if the project is not of great interest to me.
Building Your Portfolio
You will need a portfolio to show prospective clients. You should have a good 5-7 sites that you have built to show your abilities. These can be personal sites, blogs, or sites that you've done for other clients. Ideally, you'll want the sites to show a variety of your abilities so don't show a client 7 blogs unless you're building them a blog too.
New freelancers often have trouble building a portfolio. If you have a cause that you're passionate about you can donate time to building a web site for your favorite charity or offer a reduced rate to a friend's business in exchange for a reference. This will allow you to build a portfolio you can show other clients. Keep in mind that your future clients are likely to contact the owners of your portfolio sites. If you donate development to a charity, give them the same level of service you give your paying clients.
A Word About Online Freelance Job Sites
There are a number of online freelance job sites such as Guru.com and Elance.com. These can be good places for a new freelancer to get some work but you need to be careful how you utilize them. First of all, expect to make much less than your normal rate. These sites are very competitive and you will find that you are often bidding against offshore companies that charge extremely low rates. You will also want to provide a very detailed proposal as the job details are often very vague. The number one mistake freelancers make is relying on these sites for too much of their revenue. While they can be good places to get some initial work or to supplement your jobs, depending on them can be detrimental to your long-term business. Diversifying where your acquire your clients is a smart move.
Writing Proposals and Managing Project Scopes
To be successful as a freelancer, you will need to be able to write good proposals. Your proposal is how you sell a prospective client on your vision for their project. A key component of your proposal needs to be a defined scope of work. You want to spell out exactly what services you are providing and what features the finished project will contain. This will help you with change control later on. Change control is the process of documenting changes that a client wants that are outside the original scope of work or changes being made to finished portions that were previously accepted by the client. It is normal to charge an additional fee for these changes. Most freelancers have a procedure for documenting the change and the fee being charged for the change. You will want to develop a process for this as well.
Network with Other Freelancers
You can learn a lot from other freelancers. Networking with other freelancers allows you to share experiences, learn new skills and may even provide you with referrals and new business. I follow a number of freelance developers on Twitter. You can also meet other freelancers through business networking meetings in your area. Meetup.com often has small business groups that you can join. Networking with others is an important part of building a successful freelance practice.
Learn Project Management Skills
Freelancers wear a lot of hats. As a result, it can be difficult at times to manage distractions and keep projects moving forward. New freelancers often grossly underestimate how long a project may take. Developing good project management skills is essential to being successful and keeping your clients happy. Consider a course in project management or investigation one of the project management certifications. These skills will help you keep your projects on track and will help you provide your clients with more realistic estimates of when their projects will be completed.
Freelancing is a very challenging career path. It is also very rewarding. To be a successful freelance developer, you will need to develop a number of skills. For a new freelancer, learning to write proposals, learning to manage projects, building a portfolio and establishing a network are critical first steps. From this solid foundation, you can develop additional skills that will make your freelance career successful and satisfying. Good luck!
About the Author
Michael Dorf is a professional software architect and instructor with M.S. in Software Engineering and 12 years of industry experience. He teaches for LearnComputer! (learncomputer.com), which offers public instructor-led PHP training courses. Whether you prefer to sign up for our PHP course or just read a review of the Best PHP Books, you will find many useful resources on our website.
Can anybody provide any tips and suggestions on getting my first few web development jobs?
Hi. I have been learning how to write code in php and mysql. I am becoming pretty proficient. Now I would like to find jobs so that I can make money. Does anybody have any tips on how to get my first few jobs? I also know xhtml, css and a bit of javascript for when I need it.
Sounds like you have some great skills (although personally I dont like PHP, but thats just me). If you want a job in web development I would suggest running your own portfolio/blog site which can basically "advertise you" to them; However this would take time to build, and to get people interested in (although in the long term it's good).
If you want immediate work then you can post on related forums that you can do some freelance work, or just go out there and contact some companies.
Personally I got my first freelace web development job by a company just contacting me through the contact page of my site..
Whatever you end up doing, Good Luck!
Php Jobs
Simple PHP Strategy Game - Part 19: Cron Jobs
Top Tips to becoming a better PHP developer
To help you get to grips with this demanding language, we've put together some top tips to becoming a better PHP developer and hopefully getting better PHP developer jobs.
Top Tip 1 - Use PHP functions and classes
PHP has core functions and classes to make your life easier.So if you're looking to do something reasonably common, it's worth taking a look through the PHP manual before you get started with creating your own functions. For example there are existing functions and classes that get rid of white space at the beginning and end of a string (just use the trim () function).
Top Tip 2 –Create a master file
By creating a master file for your database connection settings and including it in your PHP scripts, if you ever need to change details you only need to change them in one file rather than multiple files. Using a configuration file like this is a great way to make your code easier to manager.
Top Tip 3 – Sanitize your data
Sanitizing your data when inputting it is the only way to stop SQL injections from causing you havoc. This is all part of learning about ways your application can be compromised – and luckily PHP have a core function (see top tip 1) which will sanitize your regular string inputs: mysql_real_escape_string. Using htmlspecialchars is another function which will help protect your database as it converts html characters and safeguards your application against cross-site scripting attacks.
Top Tip 4 – Leave error reports switched ON
When developing an application its likely you will come across some errors. Leaving error reports switched on makes finding and solving the error much easier. Error reports can be set up in your server's php.ini file or you can set them on top of your own PHP scripts by using the ini_set () function and setting display_errors to 1. Setting error reports on top of your own PHP scripts however does have its limitations so if you can access the server php.ini files it's probably best to set error reports from there.
Top Tip 5 – Over commenting is bad!
Comments are great but it's not necessary to add comments to every line of code. Too many comments over complicate things and good code should be pretty self-explanatory most of the time!
Top Tip 6 – Keep and re-use your old code
As you go through your career as a PHP developer, you are likely to come across the same challenges time and time again. As a result it's a good idea to keep hold of and re-use any particularly good pieces of code or pieces you think you might use again. Most integrated development environments have built-in features for exactly this purpose.
Top Tip 7 – Make the most of available help with editing.
Editing is one of the biggest time consuming processes in developing code for your application, as a result to save you time; you need to get a good editing tool. Sytanx highlighting should almost certainly be included and other optional benefits you should look for are code hinting, code navigation and built-in de-bugging tools. In order to get the most from these tools it's important to learn about your code editor's features before you get going.
Top Tip 8 – Use a PHP Framework
Using a framework may seem like hard work in the first instance as you'll need to get to grips with how the framework itself works, but in the long run using a PHP framework will pay off, especially when you have to share your code or work alongside someone else. Using frameworks such as CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Symfony and Zend offers you a standardized platform for building your web applications.
Top Tip 9 – Find a MySQL Admin tool and use it
When you're getting started in PHP it's important to get to know how to work with MySQL via command line, however when you're developing a lot of code it's incredibly time consuming to manage your database in this way. Using your MySQL admin tool you should be able to build databases and their tables quickly, export your databases in to SQL files, optimize you tables, check for any issues there might be, run SQL queries and create MySQL database users in a much more time efficient manner.
Top Tip 10 – Network
PHP is a massive subject to learn and your probably never going to know it all, so network, get involved in PHP forums and chat with other PHP developers. Sharing your experiences and sometimes even your code snippets can be hugely beneficial and keeps you learning and developing throughout your career. Using these top tips should help save you time and keep learning how to develop great code.
Find PHP jobs.
About the Author
PHP jobs UK is part of the Technojobs group - IT jobs specialists.
The Technojobs group also includes:
|
|
Pyramex Cap Style 4 Point Ratchet Suspension Hard Hat Introducing the Pyramex cap style white hard hats with ratchet suspension. This hard hat complies with ANSI Z89.1, 2003, Type 1 Class E and G Standards. The shell is constructed from a high density polyethylene plastic, and has a rain trough on sides and back.... |
|
|
Head First PHP & MySQL $24.59 If you're ready to create web pages more complex than those you can build with HTML and CSS, Head First PHP & MySQL is the ultimate learning guide to building dynamic, database-driven websites using PHP and MySQL. Packed with real-world examples, this book teaches you all the essentials of server-side programming, from the fundamentals of PHP and MySQL coding to advanced topics such as form valida... |
|
|
Python Web Development with Django $23.71 Using the simple, robust, Python-based Django framework, you can build powerful Web solutions with remarkably few lines of code. In Python Web Development with Django®, three experienced Django and Python developers cover all the techniques, tools, and concepts you need to make the most of Django 1.0, including all the major features of the new release. The authors teach Django through in-... |
|
|
A collection Of Best Babysitting Secrets : Unleash The Best Babysitter In You For [Annotated ]. $0.99 *Baby sitting tips more than 40 tips*Safety tips and plan*Dealing with emergency..*The things you should avoid.*The mindset that you need,*What you should do to the equipment*Essential links for babysitter.And more...Due to conversion problems, the paginations , numbering and display may be a bit off-focus. So I have reduced the price for this trial ebook, the content is still original.... |
|
|
Harry Potter Hermione Philosopher's Stone Hogwarts Game Vinyl Decal Skin Protector Cover 2 for Sony PSP 1000 Playstation Portable $5.88 -We have over 7 years of online selling experience! -100% Money Back Guarantee! -If you are not satisfied in ANY way, please let us know and we will replace or refund at no charge! -All items ship out within one business day!... |