Top 12 PHP Developer Skills to Put on Your Resume

In today's competitive tech landscape, standing out as a PHP developer requires a well-crafted resume that highlights your most relevant skills. This article will guide you through the top 12 skills you need to showcase on your resume to catch the eye of potential employers and secure your position as a top contender in the field of PHP development.

PHP Developer Skills

1. PHP7/PHP8
2. Laravel
3. Symfony
4. MySQL
5. JavaScript
6. JQuery
7. HTML5
8. CSS3
9. Git
10. RESTful APIs
11. Composer
12. Docker

1. PHP7/PHP8

PHP7 and PHP8 are major releases of the PHP programming language. PHP7, released in December 2015, introduced significant performance improvements, new language features like scalar type declarations, return type declarations, and the null coalescing operator, along with removing deprecated features. PHP8, released in November 2020, further enhances the language with features like the JIT compiler for better performance, union types, named arguments, attributes, constructor property promotion, and match expressions, among others. Both versions aim to make PHP more robust, efficient, and user-friendly for developers.

Why It's Important

PHP 7 and PHP 8 are important for PHP developers because they offer significant performance improvements, new language features for cleaner code, enhanced type systems, and better error handling, enabling more efficient, secure, and maintainable applications.

How to Improve PHP7/PHP8 Skills

Improving your PHP7/PHP8 development skills involves understanding new features, performance enhancements, and best practices. Here's a concise guide:

1. Leverage Typed Properties: PHP 7.4 introduced typed properties, enhancing code readability and reducing bugs. Typed Properties 2.0

2. Utilize Arrow Functions: Introduced in PHP 7.4, arrow functions simplify callback function syntax, making your code cleaner and more readable. Arrow Functions

3. Master Attributes (Annotations): PHP 8.0 introduced attributes, or structured metadata, for classes, properties, methods, parameters, and more. They offer a native way to add metadata to your codebase. Attributes

4. Explore JIT Compilation: PHP 8 introduced Just-In-Time compilation, aiming to improve performance. Understanding and benchmarking its effect on your applications can offer significant improvements. JIT in PHP 8

5. Adopt Union Types: PHP 8.0 introduced union types, allowing more than one type for properties, arguments, and return types, providing flexibility and reducing the need for PHPDoc annotations for type hinting. Union Types

6. Preloading: PHP 7.4 introduced preloading, a mechanism that significantly improves performance by loading and caching files in memory on server start-up. Preloading

7. Use Match Expressions: PHP 8.0's match expressions are a new feature that work as a more powerful version of switch statements with safer and more concise syntax. Match Expressions

8. Stay Updated with the PHP Manual: Keep abreast of the latest changes, deprecations, and new features in PHP by regularly consulting the PHP Manual.

9. Follow PHP Internals: To truly master PHP, consider following the PHP Internals mailing list. It's a great way to learn about upcoming features, performance improvements, and internals discussions.

10. Practice Coding Standards: Adhere to PHP coding standards like the PSR standards by PHP-FIG to write clean, readable, and maintainable code.

11. Explore Modern PHP Libraries and Frameworks: Familiarize yourself with modern PHP frameworks (e.g., Laravel, Symfony) and libraries to build robust, secure, and efficient web applications. They offer numerous features that simplify common web development tasks.

12. Security Best Practices: Always follow security best practices to protect your applications from common vulnerabilities. The OWASP PHP Cheat Sheet is a good starting point.

13. Performance Optimization: Regularly profile and optimize your application's performance using tools like Xdebug and Blackfire.

14. Continuous Learning: The PHP landscape is constantly evolving. Engage with the community, contribute to open source, and keep learning through resources like PHP The Right Way.

By focusing on these areas, you can significantly improve your proficiency and expertise in PHP7/PHP8 development.

How to Display PHP7/PHP8 Skills on Your Resume

2. Laravel

Laravel is a modern, open-source PHP framework designed for web application development, following the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architectural pattern, focusing on simplicity, elegance, and readability. It offers tools and features to facilitate common tasks such as routing, authentication, sessions, and caching, aiming to improve developer productivity and application maintainability.

Why It's Important

Laravel is important for a PHP developer because it provides a comprehensive, modern framework that simplifies web development through elegant syntax, built-in tools for tasks like routing, authentication, and caching, and its ecosystem, which enhances productivity and code maintainability.

How to Improve Laravel Skills

Improving your Laravel skills involves a blend of mastering its core features, understanding design patterns, and staying updated with the community. Here are concise recommendations for a PHP developer aiming to enhance their Laravel expertise:

1. Master Laravel's Documentation: Start with the Laravel official documentation. It's comprehensive and updated. Pay special attention to Routing, Middleware, Eloquent, and Blade templates.

2. Follow Laravel News: Stay updated with the latest Laravel trends and packages by following Laravel News, a primary source for all things Laravel.

3. Understand Design Patterns: Laravel uses several design patterns. Understanding these, such as Service Container, Repository Pattern, and Factory Pattern, can significantly improve your development skills. The Refactoring to Collections book by Adam Wathan helps in grasping the elegance of collections in Laravel.

4. Utilize Laracasts: Laracasts offers thousands of video tutorials on Laravel (and PHP in general), ranging from beginner to advanced levels. It's an invaluable resource for learning and staying updated with Laravel.

5. Contribute to Open Source: Engage with the Laravel community by contributing to Laravel GitHub repositories. This will help you understand Laravel's core even better and improve your coding skills.

6. Explore Advanced Features: Dive deep into Laravel's advanced features such as Queues, Events, Broadcasting, and the Eloquent ORM. Understanding these features will allow you to build more robust and efficient applications.

7. Practice: There's no substitute for hands-on practice. Challenge yourself with real-world projects and try to incorporate complex functionalities using Laravel.

By focusing on these areas, you'll significantly improve your Laravel skills, making you a more proficient and efficient PHP developer.

How to Display Laravel Skills on Your Resume

3. Symfony

Symfony is a PHP framework for web applications and a set of reusable PHP components, designed to speed up the creation and maintenance of web applications by providing a structured, efficient, and scalable way to build PHP projects.

Why It's Important

Symfony is important for a PHP Developer because it provides a robust, flexible framework for building scalable and maintainable web applications efficiently, offering reusable components, extensive documentation, and a supportive community.

How to Improve Symfony Skills

Improving your skills with Symfony, a PHP web application framework, involves understanding its components, best practices, and leveraging the community resources. Here's a concise guide:

1. Understand Symfony Fundamentals: Grasp the basics of Symfony including its architecture, request lifecycle, and configuration. The Symfony Documentation is the best place to start.

2. Master Symfony Components: Dive deeper into Symfony Components, which are standalone reusable libraries. Understanding these will help you extend Symfony's functionality.

3. Embrace Symfony Best Practices: Follow the Symfony Best Practices guide. It's essential for writing efficient, secure, and maintainable code.

4. Use Symfony Flex: Learn about Symfony Flex, a tool that makes managing Symfony applications easier by automating common tasks.

5. Get Hands-on with Doctrine: Most Symfony projects use Doctrine. Understanding Doctrine ORM will significantly enhance your data handling capabilities.

6. Write Automated Tests: Symfony has robust support for testing. Familiarize yourself with PHPUnit and start writing tests early in your development process.

7. Contribute to Symfony: Engage with the Symfony community by contributing to the Symfony GitHub repository. Contributing can be a powerful learning tool and will also help you stay updated on new features and best practices.

8. Follow SymfonyCasts: SymfonyCasts offers excellent tutorials and courses, ranging from beginner to advanced levels. It's highly recommended for practical, project-based learning.

9. Stay Updated: The world of Symfony is always evolving. Follow the Symfony Blog and join Symfony-related discussions on platforms like Stack Overflow and Symfony's Slack to stay informed about the latest trends and updates.

10. Practice, Practice, Practice: The best way to improve is by building projects. Try to incorporate advanced features and components in your projects to deepen your understanding and expertise.

By following these steps and utilizing the resources provided, you'll be on your way to becoming a more proficient Symfony developer.

How to Display Symfony Skills on Your Resume

4. MySQL

MySQL is an open-source relational database management system that PHP developers use to store, retrieve, and manage data in structured formats for web applications.

Why It's Important

MySQL is important for a PHP developer because it provides a reliable, scalable, and easy-to-use database management system for storing and managing web application data, facilitating dynamic content creation and data manipulation.

How to Improve MySQL Skills

Improving MySQL performance for a PHP Developer involves optimizing queries, indexing, and configuration. Here are concise steps with external resources:

1. Optimize Queries: Ensure your queries are efficient by selecting only necessary columns, using joins appropriately, and avoiding functions on indexed columns. MySQL Query Optimization

2. Use Indexes: Proper indexing speeds up data retrieval. Understand how to create and use indexes effectively. MySQL Indexing

3. Configuration Tuning: Tune MySQL settings based on your application's workload. Adjust buffer sizes, table types, and connection limits. MySQL Server Tuning

4. Analyze Performance: Use tools like MySQL EXPLAIN to analyze query performance and the Slow Query Log to identify bottlenecks. MySQL Performance Analysis

5. Caching: Implement caching strategies at the database level (Query Cache) or application level (object caching) to reduce database load. MySQL Caching

6. Connection Management: Efficiently manage database connections from PHP using persistent connections sparingly and closing connections when not needed. PHP MySQL Connection Management

7. Regular Maintenance: Perform regular maintenance tasks such as analyzing tables, optimizing tables, and updating statistics to keep the database running smoothly. MySQL Table Maintenance

By focusing on these areas, you can significantly improve MySQL performance in a PHP environment.

How to Display MySQL Skills on Your Resume

5. JavaScript

JavaScript is a versatile, high-level programming language primarily used for creating interactive elements and complex features on web pages, complementing the server-side capabilities of PHP by enabling dynamic content execution on the client side.

Why It's Important

JavaScript is essential for creating dynamic and interactive web experiences, complementing PHP's server-side capabilities by enabling client-side scripting for real-time content updates without page reloads.

How to Improve JavaScript Skills

Improving your JavaScript skills as a PHP developer involves understanding JavaScript's syntax, asynchronous programming, and the ecosystem around modern web development. Here's a concise guide:

1. Learn the Basics: Start with a solid foundation in JavaScript basics. Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) is an excellent resource for learning about variables, functions, control flow, and data structures.

2. Understand Asynchronous JavaScript: Since JavaScript often operates in a non-blocking manner, understanding callbacks, promises, and async/await is crucial. JavaScript.info provides a clear guide on these topics.

3. Explore ES6 and Beyond: Familiarize yourself with modern JavaScript (ES6+), including arrow functions, template literals, destructuring, and modules. ES6 Features gives a good summary of these features.

4. Practice, Practice, Practice: Build small projects or contribute to open-source projects. Websites like CodePen and JSFiddle allow you to experiment with JavaScript and share your work.

5. Learn a Framework: Dive into a JavaScript framework or library such as React, Vue, or Angular. React and Vue have great documentation and community support for beginners.

By focusing on these areas, you'll significantly improve your JavaScript skills, making you a more versatile developer capable of handling both server-side and client-side programming.

How to Display JavaScript Skills on Your Resume

6. JQuery

jQuery is a fast, small, and feature-rich JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML, making it easier to navigate a document, select DOM elements, create animations, handle events, and develop Ajax applications. For a PHP developer, jQuery offers a way to enhance user interfaces and interact with web services without extensive JavaScript knowledge.

Why It's Important

For a PHP developer, jQuery is important because it simplifies client-side scripting, making it easier to implement dynamic content, handle events, and manipulate the DOM, enhancing user interactions on web pages without extensive JavaScript knowledge.

How to Improve JQuery Skills

To improve your jQuery skills as a PHP developer, focus on the following concise strategies:

1. Understand the Basics: Solidify your understanding of jQuery basics. jQuery Learning Center is an excellent place to start.
2. Practice Regularly: Apply your knowledge in real-world projects. CodePen and JSFiddle offer platforms to practice and share code.
3. Utilize jQuery UI: Enhance UI interactions by leveraging jQuery UI, a curated set of user interface interactions, effects, widgets, and themes.
4. Follow Best Practices: Adopt best practices for performance and maintainability. CSS-Tricks provides tips and tricks for efficient coding.
5. Stay Updated: jQuery evolves, so subscribe to jQuery Blog for the latest updates and features.
6. Join Communities: Engage with other developers through forums and communities like Stack Overflow for advice and feedback.

By focusing on these areas, you'll effectively enhance your jQuery skills in conjunction with your PHP development expertise.

How to Display JQuery Skills on Your Resume

7. HTML5

HTML5 is the latest version of the Hypertext Markup Language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. As a PHP developer, you would utilize HTML5 to define the structure and layout of your web pages, incorporating new elements, attributes, and behaviors to create more interactive and media-rich websites.

Why It's Important

HTML5 provides a modern backbone for web page structure and content, enabling PHP developers to build interactive, multimedia-rich websites efficiently, and ensuring compatibility across a wide range of devices and browsers.

How to Improve HTML5 Skills

To improve your HTML5 skills as a PHP developer, focus on:

1. Mastering Semantic HTML: Understand and apply semantic tags correctly (e.g., <article>, <section>, <nav>, <footer>). This enhances accessibility and SEO. MDN Semantic HTML

2. Responsive Design: Use CSS media queries and flexible layouts to make your web applications adaptable to any screen size. CSS Tricks Guide

3. Accessibility (a11y): Ensure your web content is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. Use ARIA roles and properties where necessary. WebAIM Introduction

4. Performance Optimization: Optimize loading times by minimizing HTTP requests, compressing files, and using efficient caching. Google Web Fundamentals

5. Form Validation and Enhancement: Leverage HTML5 form inputs (e.g., type="email") and patterns for client-side validation. Enhance forms with UI libraries if needed. MDN Form Validation

6. Graphics and Visual Effects: Experiment with CSS3 for animations and effects. Use SVG for scalable graphics and Canvas or WebGL for complex animations. CSS Tricks Animation

7. Staying Updated: HTML5 and web standards evolve. Follow reputable blogs, forums, and documentation to stay current. HTML5 Doctor, W3C HTML

By focusing on these areas, you'll enhance your HTML5 skills, creating more engaging, performant, and accessible web applications.

How to Display HTML5 Skills on Your Resume

8. CSS3

CSS3 is the latest standard for Cascading Style Sheets, used to style and layout web pages. It introduces new features and capabilities (like animations, gradients, and grid layouts) that allow for more sophisticated designs and interactivity, enhancing user experience. For a PHP developer, CSS3 is essential for styling the front-end of web applications to make them visually appealing and user-friendly.

Why It's Important

CSS3 is essential for a PHP developer because it enables the creation of visually appealing, responsive, and interactive web interfaces, enhancing user experience and complementing the server-side functionality provided by PHP.

How to Improve CSS3 Skills

Improving your CSS3 skills as a PHP developer involves understanding both the fundamentals and advanced features of CSS3, along with its practical application in web development. Here are some concise tips and resources:

1. Master the Basics: Ensure you're comfortable with basic selectors, box model, positioning, and responsive design principles. Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) is an excellent resource for learning and referencing CSS properties and concepts.

2. Explore Flexbox and Grid: These layout models offer powerful ways to design responsive web pages. Practice using them to understand their capabilities and differences. A fun way to learn Flexbox is through Flexbox Froggy, and for Grid, CSS Grid Garden.

3. Leverage CSS Variables: CSS Custom Properties (variables) can simplify theme customization and make your stylesheets more maintainable. Learn more about them on MDN.

4. Experiment with Advanced Selectors and Pseudo-Classes: Enhance your CSS knowledge by using attribute selectors, structural pseudo-classes (:nth-child, :first-of-type, etc.), and pseudoelements (::before, ::after). Details on these can also be found on MDN.

5. Understand CSS Preprocessors: Sass, LESS, and Stylus can introduce variables, mixins, and nested syntax for more dynamic and efficient styling. Start with Sass Basics.

6. Adopt Responsive Design Techniques: Use media queries to create designs that work on any device size. The Responsive Web Design Basics on Google Developers offers a comprehensive guide.

7. Practice, Practice, Practice: Apply what you learn in real projects. Redesign existing projects or create new ones focusing on implementing advanced CSS features.

8. Follow CSS Blogs and News: Stay updated with the latest in CSS by following blogs like CSS-Tricks and subscribing to newsletters such as CSS Weekly.

9. Use Developer Tools: Learn to use browser developer tools to inspect and debug CSS. This will help you understand how browsers apply CSS to HTML elements.

10. Join Communities: Engage with other developers through forums, social media groups, or platforms like Stack Overflow and GitHub. Sharing knowledge and solving problems together can significantly accelerate your learning process.

By dedicating time to learn and experiment with CSS3, and staying engaged with the community, you can significantly enhance your web development skills.

How to Display CSS3 Skills on Your Resume

9. Git

Git is a version control system that allows PHP developers to track and manage changes to their codebase, facilitating collaboration and project organization.

Why It's Important

Git is crucial for a PHP developer because it allows for efficient version control, collaboration with other developers, and safekeeping of code changes, ensuring seamless project development and maintenance.

How to Improve Git Skills

Improving your Git skills as a PHP developer can significantly streamline your development process and enhance collaboration. Here are concise strategies:

1. Master the Basics: Ensure you're comfortable with basic commands like git commit, git push, git pull, and git merge. Git Basics

2. Branching and Merging: Use branches extensively for new features or bug fixes to keep the main codebase stable. Understand merging strategies. Git Branching

3. Interactive Rebase: Use git rebase -i for a cleaner commit history, which is essential for reviewing code history and understanding project evolution. Interactive Rebase

4. Stash Changes: Learn to use git stash to temporarily shelve changes, allowing you to switch contexts quickly. Stashing and Cleaning

5. Learn Git Hooks: Automate certain tasks, like syntax checks or unit tests, before commits or pushes using pre-commit or pre-push hooks. Git Hooks

6. Utilize .gitignore: Properly use a .gitignore file to exclude files not meant for version control, such as vendor directories or config files with sensitive information. Ignoring Files

7. Adopt a Workflow: Implement a Git workflow that complements your project's needs, whether it's Gitflow, GitHub flow, or another strategy. Understanding workflows can improve team collaboration and code quality. Comparing Workflows

8. Leverage Git GUI/CLI Tools: While the command line is powerful, GUI tools like GitKraken or SourceTree can simplify complex Git operations and provide visual insight into the repository’s state. GUI Clients

9. Regularly Review the Log: Use git log and its variations (like git log --graph) to review changes and understand the project’s history. Viewing the Commit History

10. Keep Learning: Git is vast. Regularly explore new commands, flags, and features. Follow blogs, tutorials, and forums dedicated to Git and PHP development.

By focusing on these areas, a PHP developer can significantly improve their Git skills, leading to better code management, team collaboration, and overall project quality.

How to Display Git Skills on Your Resume

10. RESTful APIs

RESTful APIs are a set of rules and standards that use HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE data, allowing for interaction with web services in a stateless, cacheable manner. For a PHP developer, it means creating or consuming web services that follow these REST principles, enabling seamless communication and data exchange between different systems or components over the internet.

Why It's Important

RESTful APIs are important for PHP developers because they enable the creation of scalable, flexible, and easy-to-integrate web services, allowing for seamless communication and data exchange between different systems, applications, or services over the internet.

How to Improve RESTful APIs Skills

Improving RESTful APIs involves enhancing performance, security, usability, and scalability. Here are concise strategies tailored for a PHP developer:

1. Use HTTP Methods Appropriately: Ensure you're using HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.) correctly for CRUD operations. REST API Tutorial

2. Implement Caching: Use HTTP caching strategies to reduce server load and improve response times. Caching in REST

3. Version Your API: Introduce versioning (/v1/, /v2/) to your API endpoints to manage changes and backward compatibility. API Versioning

4. Secure Your API: Employ OAuth for authentication, HTTPS for secure data transmission, and validate inputs to prevent injections. OAuth 2.0, OWASP Security Cheat Sheet

5. Utilize Rate Limiting: Protect your API from overuse and abuse by implementing rate limiting. API Rate Limiting

6. Optimize Data Formats: Choose the right data format (JSON is more popular and lightweight) and ensure proper encoding. JSON Guidelines

7. Use HATEOAS: Implement Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State (HATEOAS) for self-discoverable APIs. Understanding HATEOAS

8. Document Your API: Provide clear and comprehensive documentation for your API. Tools like Swagger can help. Swagger

9. Implement Error Handling: Use HTTP status codes correctly and provide descriptive error messages. HTTP Status Codes

10. Monitor and Log: Use tools like ELK stack for monitoring and logging to understand API usage and troubleshoot issues. ELK Stack

By focusing on these areas, you can enhance the performance, security, and usability of your RESTful APIs.

How to Display RESTful APIs Skills on Your Resume

11. Composer

Composer is a dependency manager for PHP that allows developers to manage and install libraries and packages their projects require.

Why It's Important

Composer is important for PHP developers as it simplifies dependency management, automates library installation, and ensures project consistency, significantly enhancing productivity and collaboration.

How to Improve Composer Skills

To improve your use of Composer as a PHP developer, follow these concise steps:

1. Stay Updated: Regularly update Composer itself to the latest version by running composer self-update. This ensures you have the latest features and security updates.

2. Use Versions Wisely: Specify package versions using semantic versioning. It helps manage package updates without breaking your project. SemVer provides a good understanding of version constraints.

3. Optimize Autoloader: Improve performance by optimizing the autoloader with composer dump-autoload -o, especially for production environments.

4. Manage Dependencies Effectively: Periodically review and update your project dependencies to keep them current and secure. Use composer outdated to find updatable packages.

5. Understand and Use Scripts: Leverage Composer's script hooks for automation tasks like testing and linting. The official docs offer detailed guidance.

6. Utilize Composer Plugins: Enhance Composer's functionality with plugins. Explore available plugins at Packagist.

7. Security Checks: Regularly check your project for vulnerabilities with tools like Security Advisories Checker.

8. Efficient Loading with Classmap Authoritative: For production, use the --classmap-authoritative flag to speed up class loading.

9. Private Packages Management: If working with private packages, consider using Satis or Private Packagist for better management.

10. Explore and Contribute: Finally, actively engage with the Composer community. Report issues, contribute to discussions, and consider contributing to the project on GitHub.

By following these tips, you can leverage Composer more effectively in your PHP projects.

How to Display Composer Skills on Your Resume

12. Docker

Docker is a platform that allows developers to package applications into containers, ensuring consistency across environments. For a PHP developer, it simplifies setting up and sharing development environments, making it easier to run and deploy PHP applications consistently across any machine without the "works on my machine" problem.

Why It's Important

Docker simplifies development and deployment processes for PHP developers by ensuring consistent environments across different stages, reducing "works on my machine" issues, and enabling easy scalability and version control for applications.

How to Improve Docker Skills

Improving your Docker experience as a PHP developer involves optimizing Dockerfile configurations, managing containers efficiently, and leveraging Docker Compose for service orchestration. Here are concise strategies:

1. Optimize Dockerfile: Slim down your images using multi-stage builds, ensuring only necessary components are included. Docker's Best practices for writing Dockerfiles guide is a valuable resource.

2. Use Official PHP Images: Start with official PHP images from Docker Hub to ensure reliability and security.

3. Leverage Docker Compose: For managing multi-container PHP applications, Docker Compose simplifies the process. Get started with Docker Compose.

4. Persistent Data Management: Use volumes for data persistence, crucial for databases and sessions. Learn about Manage data in Docker.

5. Performance Tuning: Adjust PHP and server settings for optimal performance within containers. The PHP Docker Good Defaults provides a good starting point.

6. Security Practices: Follow Docker and PHP security best practices, such as using non-root users and scanning images for vulnerabilities. Docker's security section offers detailed insights.

7. Automate with CI/CD: Integrate Docker with CI/CD pipelines for automated testing and deployment. Docker in Continuous Integration provides guidelines and tools.

8. Networking Considerations: Understand Docker's networking options to configure PHP applications' access and communication efficiently. The Networking overview is a good resource.

9. Continuous Learning: Docker and PHP are constantly evolving. Stay updated with the latest features and practices by following the Docker Blog and PHP.net.

By focusing on these areas, PHP developers can significantly enhance their Docker usage, leading to more efficient development workflows and production environments.

How to Display Docker Skills on Your Resume