PHP programmer requirements

Higher education

For many employers, having a university degree as a PHP programmer is not a decisive selection criterion. Nevertheless, a good higher education is the basis that will provide an opportunity to develop in the profession and build a career. To study programming at a university, several areas of training are suitable:

“Informatics and Computer Engineering”;

“Applied Mathematics and Informatics”;

“Software Engineering”;

«Information systems and technologies».

Place of work

PHP programmers are versatile developers, they will be able to find work in large and small companies in various fields:

• advertising;
• online sales;
• Web development;
• banking system;
• industry and production.
• online education, etc.

Like other software developers, PHP programmers can work full-time or freelance – on a project basis, on a contract basis.

Professional knowledge

• PHP scripting language.
• Basic knowledge of other programming languages (Java, JavaScript, C++).
• Platforms Laravel, CakePHP, Symfony.
• Technical English.
• Knowledge of web technologies (HTML, Ajax, WordPress, SQL, MySQL and others).
• Git version control system.
• Content management systems.
• Object-oriented programming.
• Ability to work with software packages for video processing, images, graphics creation.
• Database management systems.

Front end development – what is it and how is it different from back end?

The word “frontend” can be found more and more often not only on the Internet, but also in conversation in ordinary friendly hangouts. Surely you have repeatedly wondered who a front-end developer is, what his tasks are, what he does, and what a front-end is in principle. Let’s take a closer look at what “front-end” means, what is its difference from “back-end” and what skills you need to have in order to become a sought-after front-end developer.

What is a frontend?

 Frontend is a public part of web applications (websites) with which the user can interact and contact directly. Frontend includes the display of functional tasks, the user interface performed on the client side, as well as the processing of user requests. In fact, the frontend is everything that the user sees when opening a web page. In turn, a web application is a client-server application in which the client is mainly a browser, and the server is a web server. The logic of the web application is distributed between the server and the client, data is stored mainly on the server, and information is exchanged over the network. Simply put, this is what the user sees and what actions he performs every time he connects to the Internet and opens any browser.

Frontend development is the work of creating a public part of a web application with which the user directly contacts, and functionality that is usually performed on the client side. That is, the front-end developer is working to ensure that each button, icon, text and window on the site not only stands in its place, does not overlap each other and looks holistic (this is a web layout), but also that they fulfill their intended purpose – performed some action (for example, so that the “buy” button opens the basket, and “play” starts playing a movie or music).

In order to create a popular and accessible product (web application), a front-end developer needs to interact with other programmers, designers, marketers, analysts, and other specialists. Front-end development components: HTML (HyperText Markup Language) in simple terms is the markup language for all elements and documents on the page, and their interaction in the page structure. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a language for characterizing and styling the appearance of a document.

With the help of CSS code, the browser understands exactly how the elements should be displayed. CSS creates fonts, colors, determines the location of site blocks, and more. It also adapts the same document in different styles, displays the transmission on the screen or for reading by voice. JavaScript is a language designed to bring web pages to life. The task of JavaScript is to respond to user actions, handle keystrokes, cursor movements, mouse clicks. JavaScript also allows you to enter messages, send requests to the server, and load data without reloading the page, and so on. The main task of a Frontend developer If you have a creative approach to work, you are eager to design and create dynamic user interfaces, you definitely have a road to the frontend.

All front-end development is done on the user side, it is no less important than back-end development (we will also mention it a little later), since this is what the user sees and interacts with. The main task of a front-end specialist is to connect the graphic layouts of the Web application (website pages) presented by the designer with the backend and, if necessary, implement computing functionality on the user’s side. The main technologies in the front-end arsenal are HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Of course, when working in a team, you need to know and understand many processes related to the work of front-end development. Being already an experienced front-end developer, you need to be familiar with back-end technologies and understand the principles of user interaction and with applications (UX).

What should an experienced front-end developer know?

Recently, the vacancy of a front-end developer is quite in demand and is relevant on job search sites. At the same time, you can find a lot of vacancies related or similar in responsibilities to front-end developers. It is important to note that many still confuse the vacancy of a front-end developer with a website layout designer or designer. To some extent, having studied the labor market, one gets the impression that a front-end developer is a human-machine that provides a whole range of services, such as a handyman in the IT space. Some employers do not at all distinguish between a front-end developer and a layout designer, presenting to the applicant for a vacancy for the position of a front-end developer knowledge of skills that are completely unrelated to his profile. Employers themselves often do not know that a layout designer is actually a narrow-profile specialist.