There are really only two ways to find a decent PHP job, then: find freelance projects from clients that will pay for your expertise, or get a full time job. Here are some good destinations for each.

Freelance

Elance is one of the more professional freelance PHP project sites. It was Elance that Kevin Rose used to find his first developer, with the pair going on to found Digg, the largest social news site today. Elance integrates certification recognition, skills tests and a number of other features that make good developers shine; all this information is included in the project boards and customers on Elance are typically willing to pay more for high-quality freelancers.

PHP-Freelancers, while not as professional or effective as Elance, has an interesting approach to marketing its site. As a result, it is regularly come across by standard non-technical clients who understand they need somebody to program their website but don’t understand how. The country-based project listings of the system they use are ideal for finding clients in your region, and such clients could be easily persuaded to hire you based on your locality and level of expertise.

oDesk is an interesting experiment in freelancing. The idea is that people post jobs, you get hired for a particular job and then use oDesk-supplied software to allow both parties to keep in contact - and for the employer to keep tabs on where you’re at. The mere concept instills trust in employers, and with skills testing inbuilt and a focus on quality work, you may just find your next highly-valued client.

Waged

While not the largest out there, you simply can’t go past Zend’s PHP Job Board and similar JobThread-populated job boards. PHPJobs.com also features some interesting positions, although many overlap with the Zend board.

Indeed has one of the largest collections, however it’s almost entirely US-based jobs. Odin also has quite a few.

Also check out my tips on scoring a freelance PHP job.

The problem with PHP is this: in years gone by it was typically seen as an amateur, hobbyist language. The state of the language at the time didn’t exactly either.

Today, the language is fantastic - powerful, scalable, and really easy to use. Yet there’s a lot of dodgy PHP code from yesteryear still out there, and as you can imagine, people aren’t just going to abandon it.

As a result, many (if not most) of the freelance PHP jobs out there today involve maintaining this code of yesteryear. It’s mostly PHP 4, no OOP, terrible coding standards, no thought for best practices and so on.

So, here’s what you can do to score a great freelance PHP job.

1. Practise
Most of the clients out there with projects you want to work on don’t really understand tech. I’ve had a client run an insanely profitable online game yet fail to understand the basic concepts of hiring a developer. To them, all that matters is how much you charge, but to you, they offer an invaluable opportunity to practise in a live environment and add work to your project.

Instead of charging this client for services rendered, I put in a few hours a week in my spare time and had him cover my expenses. He’s happy, I’m happy, he gets his business benefits, and I get free skills training in a really high performance environment (how does 20,000 hits per hour sound?).

2. Advertise
Get a portfolio site up. Show some projects you’ve worked on. Describe what you did yourself in those projects, e.g. “I had to manage the technical infrastructure of the business, including developing database driven websites, securing web servers and reporting to stakeholders.” Include screenshots. Whenever you have potential clients or put up ads, link to the portfolio site. A dedicated domain is essential; $7 per year won’t send you broke, and it puts forward the basics of professionalism.

3. Reach out
A lot of people have websites that they want improved, or would want improved if they knew how. Typically they have static HTML files or the low quality PHP code I mentioned earlier, they are on either a free host or an overpriced host, and they might even be able to derive business benefits from hiring you to improve their site. Reach out to amateur website owners and webmasters, let them know that you offer freelance website development services and check if they’re interested. You might just score your best client yet.

With these strategies, you should be well on the way to scoring your next great gig as a freelance PHP developer.

The Good
Despite general opinions from the community that it better reflects your ability to remember textbook concepts than actually code PHP, the Zend Certified Engineer (ZCE) qualification is about as good as it gets, in my mind. If someone takes the trouble to study and attain the ZCE, they’ve got what it takes to, for example, learn the framework we use in our development shop.

I appreciate that it’s no measure of experience, but it’s still a reasonable measure of capability. Having a ZCE is definitely a plus point on a resume.

Of course, I’ve had one candidate give me an executive summary as to why he intentionally didn’t get his ZCE, and we hired him on the spot.

The Bad
The various online tests available, such as from Expert Rating, can occasionally be detrimental to your chances of being hired. I’ve had a candidate once show that he got 99% on an online PHP test, yet he had no other experience to speak of, and when I briefly quizzed him he clearly wasn’t terribly good with actual PHP development.

Given that these tests are open book - as in, there is nothing stopping you from consulting the mighty Google halfway through your test - the results are mildly indicative at best, entirely dubious at worst. There’s nothing wrong with such a qualification - I’ve got one myself - but they’re only really good evidencing your other experience. A solid resume of having worked on various real-world projects, combined with one or two certifications to show that you have the technical skills, is always a good idea.

The Ugly
The worst you can possibly do is have nothing to demonstrate your ability. If anything, bring along some code samples to the interview (or email them through). There’s a reasonable chance you’ll have someone technically-minded helping out with the interview, and if you can demonstrate that you understand the code, you’ll create a decent image.

I’ve had candidates send me incredibly-brief (how does seven words and four URLs sound?) emails listing a couple of sites they’ve worked on, including some hosted on free web hosts. Make sure you demonstrate some basic professionalism and ability to code if you have nothing else to speak of.