Remote PHP job market in 2024: hiring getting harder?
Applied to 12 remote PHP positions in the last month. 3 technical screenings, 1 offer. Two years ago the ratio was much better.
Is the PHP remote job market getting more competitive or am I imagining it?
The market tightened noticeably in late 2023. Companies that were hiring aggressively in 2021-2022 slowed down. The positions that are open get more applications because there are fewer of them.
From the hiring side: we get 3x more applications for every PHP position compared to 2022. Quality varies a lot. We are spending more time on screening. The process is longer for everyone.
The best roles are still filled quickly through referrals or by candidates who are already known. Cold applications to job boards are the hardest path right now.
Specializations help: Laravel + AWS + queue architecture is harder to find than generic PHP. Developers who can own an entire vertical (backend + deployment + ops) get more attention than generalists.
Open source contributions, public GitHub, blog posts: they make you visible before you apply. Three of my last four jobs came through someone finding my GitHub work.
Worth targeting companies that are building on PHP specifically rather than companies that happen to have a PHP job open. A company that chose PHP as a strategic technology invests more in PHP developers.
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