PHP developers remain in demand in the labor market, despite the emergence of new programming languages. According to W3Techs, as of 2023, PHP was used on more than 78.2% of all websites on the Internet. This confirms the high demand for PHP programmers in the global labor market
Customer request
In 2023, a very large (today) company that automates payments and EDM contacted us with a request to select a PHP developer.
The PHP language was created quite a long time ago, as early as 1995, so there are a lot of specialists in this field, but the candidates' level of competence leaves much to be desired.
Expectations from the candidate:
- Senior+ Specialist Level
- Knowledge of PHP 7.x, Symfony 4, Zend (Legacy)
- Knowledge of Mysql, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ
- Commercial experience with Highload
- Fintech experience (excellent knowledge of ACID principles)
It would be a plus:
- Knowledge of Yii2, Laravel
- Experience working with the Frontend part (layout, basic understanding of js/ts, the framework is not important)
In addition to technical requirements, a specialist must be ready to:
- Work, or rather live in a time zone +4 from Moscow time
Difficulties encountered
- A large stop list of candidates. Previously, the position was held by other recruitment agencies, and the client also searched on an ongoing basis on his own. In the end, the stop-list of candidates was 345 people.
- High load experience. The main difficulty in selecting was my experience with Highload.
This concept is very subjective: for some, 5000 RPC can be considered a high level of load, while for others it can be an everyday practice. Our client processed more than 1 million transactions per day, so we needed a specialist with experience working with similar or even higher workloads, and the client also preferred candidates from the Fintech field - Tight deadlines. OOHOne of the client's special requirements was the need to find an employee within a month. In the end, we did it in just 2 weeks!)
Recruitment process
After talking to the client, we found out that this position had been in use for more than 6 months and was considered a streaming job. During this time, the client has developed the opinion that they “know by sight” all PHP developers living in the +4 time zone from MSK. Our recruiters found that the main problem with filling this position was the candidates' lack of experience in working with high workloads and insufficient knowledge of ACID principles.
After determining the candidate's profile, we started selecting a specialist. Since the work involved a parallel search with the client and we were limited by a large stop list, we started a targeted search. To do this, we identified “donor” companies by stack and direction and turned to our favorite search resources, including: hh.ru, Habr, LinkedIn, Facebook, specialized Telegram channels, and, of course, our extensive database of candidates.
The result of our work
In 2 weeks, we were able to process more than 143 resumes, send 72 letters and conduct 5 interviews with the best candidates. One of the specialists was found on LinkedIn; he was passively searching but considering changing employers. Our recruiter contacted him and persuaded him to talk about this position. During the initial interview, the candidate made a strong impression on our recruiter, and there was no doubt that this was the person we needed!
The candidate met all the requirements for this position and had additional experience in developing frontend as part of personal projects. However, experience with high loads and experience in Fintech were the key factors for our client. This candidate fit our profile perfectly, as he worked for a company developing an international crypto exchange, where his team managed inbound and outbound transactions. He also lived in the city. Novosibirsk.
After three interviews, including live coding, no one was left in doubt about the candidate's competencies. The client made an offer, which we successfully completed and persuaded the candidate to accept. The whole process took only 2 weeks, and the candidate was able to start working in 3 weeks (taking into account the transfer of cases at his previous job).
This case study demonstrates Invista's ability to effectively find suitable specialists even in a highly competitive environment and specific requirements. We have confirmed our reputation as a reliable partner in the recruitment of IT personnel, providing customers with high-quality results in a short time.
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