I’ve got a couple of copies of Php|architect’s PHP Job Hunter’s Handbook to give away, the only catch is you have to sign up to PHPPositions’ feed via email. It’s managed by Feedburner, so it can be trusted and you wont get any spam, just super smashing great php jobs in the UK.
I’ll pick two email addresses at random this time next week and get the books posted out.
I’m currently trying to sell DaveProxy and as such will be switching to a more cost effective hosting solution.
I’ve been using dedicated servers for quite some time now, initially with LayeredTech, but after their atrocious price increase, I promptly moved to iWeb, who I would recommend.
Moving away from the dedicated server arena I start looking at Virtual Private Servers, which give all the benefits of running your own dedicated server, usually at a fraction of the price, along with a few added benefits. This lead me to Slicehost.com.
Slicehost were a name I’d heard of, so I went to check them out. Their tagline, ‘Built for Developers’, just about sums it all up for me. With plans starting from just $20/month, I was instantly interested and their well designed website answered all the questions I needed. The features that did it for me the most:
Another bonus, they were recently acquired by Rackspace, so you can rest assured they are fairly stable and not going anywhere.
Ordering a slice was nice and easy and what really impressed me was the time it took for my slice to be ready to use. I’m used to a 48 hour wait on new dedicated servers, but as you can imagine, creating a new virtual machine takes a matter of minutes. After confirming my details I was taken to the management portal, which showed my slice as 60% built. Two refreshes later and it was complete, I checked my email and my user credentials were waiting for me.
The management portal is also excellent, it’s really nice and basic in terms of looks, no fancy gradients.
This blog is the only site I have moved over so far, it was nice and simple as the slice is running Ubuntu like my dedicated server.
Only time will tell how reliable they are, but I’m extremely impressed so far.
PHPPositions UK is a simple job board, listing genuine PHP jobs, for genuine companies. No agencies.
I needed a little project to help get to grips with the Zend Framework, so I created a little job board specifically targetted at PHP jobs in the UK. It’s not finished yet, but it’s good enough to put up on the web.
Check it out, if you’re in the UK and on the lookout for positions, subscribe to the feed. Eventually I’d like to monetise the site, but that depends on it generating a large enough audience, so until that point I’ll be adding jobs manually, thus keeping up a fairly high standard of jobs on there.
After reading this thread, I thought I’d spend some time writing about what I feel are some measures you can take to landing a job in PHP. This first part is going to concentrate on the kind of technical matters I think any PHP developer should at least have knowledge of, if not some kind of experience. A lot of the subjects discussed aren’t specific to PHP, but the focus will be on PHP. It’ll be far from exhaustive (please feel free to flame, but constructive comments would be nicer) and there’ll probably be quite a few references to Joel on Software articles, mainly because I’ve read a lot of them and I can’t be bothered to research the topics further! There’ll be plenty of links to follow, plus the odd dead tree format recommendation.
This should be a no brainer. Lots of experience of programming in PHP, is not strictly necessary, a good programmer, particularly with experience of scripting languages or programming for the web should be able to pick up PHP in no time.
For someone who is basically a good software developer, learning another programming language is just not going to be a big deal. In two weeks they’ll be pretty productive. In two years, you may need them to do something completely different in a programming language which hasn’t even been invented.
- Sorting Resumes by Joel Spolsky
Most PHP applications are used in conjunction with an SQL database, predominantly MySQL, so you’re going to need some of this under your belt.
Some knowledge of PHP is essential. Be aware of the benefits, the caveats and if you’re interested, a little of PHPs history, some people really care about it. I think it definitely shows you are passionate about what you do or want to do. Maybe look to PHP’s future, research whats coming up in PHP 5.3, or whatever the next version is at the current time.
Most PHP roles go beyond just programming, so a good sense of what’s involved in a full project life cycle should help you get that PHP job over the next guy. There are lots of processes and models available, but you don’t need to be familiar with them all. Get a good idea of the 7 stages of the traditional Waterfall Model and you should be able to apply the principles to most methods. They are:
I like UML for design and documentation, so worth knowing about even if you haven’t practiced it.
If you are familiar with Object Oriented methodologies, arm yourself with the knowledge of PHP5’s OO capabilities. Once you’ve got that, get a handle of the vast array of PHP frameworks that are available. You don’t have to know them inside and out, just be aware of them and the benefits they give you. PEAR is a huge library of PHP code, check it out
There are plenty of tools available to aid and improve the development process, be familiar with as many as you can handle. I would insist on becoming familiar with, downloading and experimenting with subversion, or some other version control system.
Joel Spolsky has what he refers to The Joel Test. Later in this series, we’ll discuss interviews, and I will recommend asking at least one of these questions at an interview, so you need to understand what they all mean and why they might benefit a software development team.
Security is often a big cause for concern in the PHP world, mainly because it’s not been handled correctly before. PHP is not insecure in itself, most vulnerabilities attributed to PHP are actually simply in softwares written in PHP.
Be aware of security issues in your code such as SQL Injection, XSS and CSRF. Also be aware of configuration directives that can affect the security of your PHP powered web servers.
Understand what a web service is and some of the related technologies. PHP is ideal as a glue language, combining web services to consume single web services or create mash ups of several web services, but can also be used for providing web services.
In my opinion, developers should be capable of administering the full stack they develop for, usually in this case, the LAMP stack. There can’t be many potential PHP developers out there who don’t have a spare computer or hard disk lying around that they can’t install Debian on and follow a simple LAMP installation tutorial. If you’ve not got a spare hard disk, download VmWare Player and a debian appliance
I think thats all I can think of for now, I’m sure there’s plenty I’ve missed. If there’s any technical leads, managers or recruiters reading, please pipe up with what you expect from your applicants. The next part in the series will focus on the soft skills required for banking that PHP job.
Deep Fried Bytes
As previously noted, I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts recently, here’s my first review
Deep Fried Bytes is an audio talk show with a Southern flavor hosted by technologists and developers Keith Elder and Chris Woodruff. The show discusses a wide range of topics including application development, operating systems and technology in general. Anything is fair game if it plugs into the wall or takes a battery.
The first thing I’ll say about this podcast is that it’s fun! The goofy intro music and southern accents are a breath of fresh air, especially for me being over on this side of the pond.
Woody and Keith never seem short of questions to ask and usually keep their guests engaged, often making them work pretty hard to explain their points. They make a point asking their guests to back track a little, getting them to give their slant on an acronym or buzz word that they have used.
Considering I’m an open source advocate, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed all the .net topics that have come up. While Deep Fried Bytes wants to be a Technology Podcast, as Keith and Woody are both currently .net guys, lots of their discussions and guests are based around Microsoft technologies. I think of the 9 episodes so far, only episode 4 with Joe Stump of Digg fame, has not involved some sort of Microsoft employee or MVP. This may be enough to put some non-Microsoft fans off, but I’d advise against it. Like I said, the shows are very interesting, good fun and might even give someone like me a little insight on what it’s like on the Microsoft side of the fence.
Another thing worth mentioning, the podcasts usually have a sponsor, it currently plays for about 10 seconds part way through the cast, is fairly unobtrusive and isn’t annoying or aggravating.
Definitely worth a subscription, doubt you will be disappointed. 8/10
Dave Marshall is a Web Developer living in Hull, England. He works on various personal projects and is the Development Manager at C Spencer Ltd, a multi-discipline engineering contractor.
