What questions would you ask a PHP programmer or company that you were hiring? (do not send me PMs about hiring your or your company - I'll report it as spam)
- Do you have any experience in working with large projects, either starting from scratch, building off of others, or maintaining an existing one? Anyone can pick up a PHP book and learn PHP, but it takes practice like that to truly become good at coding, and be able to create maintainable programs in PHP. - Formally trained, self taught, or both? "self taught" or "both" can be very good, a highly motivated programmer, just make sure they have a worth ethic. - What experiences do you have in working with MVC (Model-View Controller) frameworks or ORMs (Object relational mapper)? This is to make sure they can work with more complex aspects of coding. PHP itself does not require a framework to use it in any environment, finding someone with experience here will come in handy - many PHP developers don't work with such tools. - Do you or have you used any Version Control System (such as Git or SVN) This is very important for developers working with large volumes of code and with a group of others. Find people who can run these programs so you wont have to train them on it. - Are you comfortable with HTML/CSS, and do you know how to use JavaScript and AJAX? Rich web applications will often require use of AJAX and other interactive features that creates a more stateful web. Make sure they know the concepts behind it so they can effectively provide a backed.
We are always looking for bigger thinkers and not simple fan boys so would ask the likes of the following as it shows both a breadth of knowledge as well as being able to think on your feet and go not be a simply repeating things parot fashion - What advantages does .Net have over PHP?
How many years experience do you have in this field? What are the sites you have done before? Do you have done any payment related projects? Quote me the amount for my site?
How many years Work Experience ? Your main projects ? And about experience and works on html,css,AJAX ..
Thanks for the great suggestions So someone who hasn't done this is likely to have less experience working with larger products and generally less PHP experience, correct? How would a non-coder like me recognize if they actually have this skillset? Many will just say 'yes I have worked with this' but it would not tell me their level of experience or if they happen to be lying. What more specific question could I ask them about this?