Finding Employment as a PHP Developer

[Truffle]

Hi guys,

 

A question for those of you who work or have worked fulltime as a PHP developer.

What's the best way of someone like me (will explain further down) getting a job?

I live in the Dallas TX area (actually small town a couple hours from Dallas) and have been looking for several months and I am getting discouraged.

Most of what I can find on the internet want Senior Level developers and/or contractors for short term projects. I know my limits and am honest with myself.

I'm Junior/Entry Level.

 

About me:

 

No Degree

Currently 2 years in with a company doing:

• C Programming
  
• Brief exposure to Java, SCRUM, and a reporting tool with an embedded javascript engine
  
• Greatly expanded my Linux knowledge
  
• Git
  
• Enhanced my general programming skills such as good coding standards and practices
  

My PHP experience

Practically no Work Experience ( I've never held the position PHP Developer )

However, I have used PHP for small projects in a couple of previous jobs, but I was in full control of the code ( ie, no one to review my work and tell me it sucked )

Personal Projects

Like many, the bulk of my PHP is personal projects. I develop using OOP when appropriate. OOP is fairly new to me though I feel I'm picking it up quickly. I have the basics down like constructors, destructors, private vs public members. I understand what inheritance is, but I've never used it for anything.

I use jQuery mainly for the simplified AJAX methods, but also use it for more general javascript ( jQuery is also fairly new to me )

Some C# experience. Made one application. I enjoyed it but I think PHP is where I belong.

In fact, I wrote a Windows application in C# ( start off as an exercise ) that downloads map reviews for a video game. The app downloads a sqlite database from my webserver that contains the reviews. It also downloads screenshots and has a "Download Map" button in each review. I have turned this into a web app now, using PHP, and pretty much abandoned the C# project. However to keep the two working together I continue to use the same SQLite DB for the reviews. Any new features that I add go into a MySQL database and just keep the two DBs in line by the ID numbers.

 

I would post a couple of my sites, but don't know if that is appropriate on this forum?

 

I have expanded my job search to include other states. I've posted my resume on the main job seeker sites and even though I specifiy Junior Level I keep getting responses for Senior Level stuff with requirements that are beyond me. I only had two valid responses from IT recruiters( one is cybercoders which I hear bad things about ) for Junior level stuff but have yet to get any follow up responses.

 

I'm thinking of attending some of the Dallas PHP User group meetings, but not sure how much help that would be.

 

What have you done to help you find a job? If you're a recent junior level developer hire I would love to hear from you

 

[KevinM1]

Feel free to showcase your existing work in our Website Critique sub-forum.

 

You likely won't be able to start off with PHP as your career as, well, the economy is in the shitter, and you're in a rather large pool of other amateurs/quasi-professionals.  With no real portfolio to speak of, your chances of getting hired are virtually nil.  Your best bet, at the moment, would likely be to start as a freelancer in order to build a respectable portfolio and learn to deal with clients, then move on from there.

 

Also, work on your deficiencies.  OOP is more than just syntax.  Do you know what composition means?  Do you know what a factory is?  An adapter?  The MVC pattern?  How are your database skills?  What about your non-jQuery JavaScript?