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Hire PHP developers who modernize without breaking the business

The PHP application that has run your business for years, and the new work built on top of it. A dedicated PHP developer from Latin America who works your hours, adds tests before refactoring and brings old code up to modern PHP.

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A developer typing at a desk with two monitors

TRUSTED BY TEAMS WHOSE CLOUDTASK HIRES HAVE STAYED 5 TO 8 YEARS

  • Apollo
  • Vonage
  • Expensify
  • GetAccept

How it works

How do I hire a PHP developer?

You do one thing: interview. We handle everything else.

1

Post the role

5 minutes. The role, the motion, the tools, the comp band. That is all we need to start.

2

Review your matches

3 to 5 matches in 48 hours.

3

Interview and hire

We coordinate interviews. On Managed Staffing, we also handle payroll and compliance across LATAM.

How it works

WHY TEAMS TRUST CLOUDTASK

What you get with every hire

Dedicated to your codebase

One PHP developer who learns your code, your conventions and your roadmap. Not a freelancer who closes a ticket and moves on.

Same hours as your team

Latin America and the Caribbean overlap the US working day, so code review, standups and production issues get handled live.

Searched against your stack

PHP version, framework, database and hosting come from your brief, and each profile is checked against them before you see it.

Replacement guarantee

24 months on Managed Staffing, 6 months on Direct Hire. If the fit is wrong, the guarantee covers the replacement search.

WHY CLOUDTASK

Staffing with numbers behind it

10,000+

hires placed

since 2016

85%

still in seat

past 90 days

24 months

replacement guarantee

on Managed Staffing

12

countries

across Latin America and the Caribbean

TECH STACK

The PHP stack we screen for

Modern PHP

  • Current PHP versions with strict types

  • Composer and PSR standards

  • Symfony components

  • Custom and framework-free applications

Legacy and modernization

  • Upgrades from older PHP versions

  • Refactoring procedural code

  • Static analysis with PHPStan or Psalm

  • Moving to a framework step by step

Data and integrations

  • MySQL, MariaDB and PostgreSQL

  • PDO and Doctrine

  • REST APIs and webhooks

  • Redis and queues

Quality and hosting

  • PHPUnit and Pest

  • Docker and CI pipelines

  • PHP-FPM with Nginx

  • Security scanning

Code on a laptop and an external monitor

PRICING MODEL

Managed Staffing.

Managed Staffing is open to every role we place. We find the person, handle payments and compliance, and stay involved after the hire with check-ins, visibility, and escalation when something is off. You get the person. We keep the machine running. For roles that create demand, outbound SDRs, BDRs, demand generation and full-cycle AEs, Managed Staffing runs on a six-month minimum term.

Pay

One all-in monthly rate

Per person. That is the number, and there is nothing added to it.

In the monthly rate

  • Sourcing from the CloudTask staffing and recruiting company
  • Screening and vetting
  • Matching coordination
  • Worker payments
  • Compliance and employment administration
  • Onboarding support at day 0, 7, 30 and 60
  • Ongoing check-ins with the hire and with you
  • Time and activity tracking, on by default
  • Performance escalation
  • 24-month replacement guarantee. Replacements not capped.
  • Health benefits available on request
  • Equipment benefits available on request

Stays with you

  • The work itself
  • Priorities and direction
  • Who you hire

$299 to start your search. One time, not a subscription. It applies to your buyout or toward your first placement.

Start your search

PRICING MODEL

Direct Hire.

Direct Hire is open to every role we place. We find the person, vet them, and hand them over. You employ them, you manage them, you own the relationship from day one. Roles that create demand usually land here, because live call feedback and daily coaching work best coming straight from your sales leader, and there is no minimum term.

Pay

20% to 30%

Of first-year base salary. One time, quoted per role, paid when they accept.

In the fee

  • Sourcing from the CloudTask staffing and recruiting company
  • Screening and vetting
  • Shortlist of matched candidates
  • Interview coordination
  • Offer support
  • 6-month replacement guarantee. One replacement, same job description.

Yours when they accept

  • Employment and payroll
  • Compliance and employment administration
  • Ongoing management
  • Time and activity tracking
  • Health benefits and equipment benefits

$299 to start your search. One time, not a subscription. It applies to your buyout or toward your first placement.

Start your search

How CloudTask compares

Run the numbers. We did.

The same role, three ways to fill it.

Swipe to compare

US Direct Hire Staffing Agency
Time to First Interview 48 hours 3 to 6 weeks 2 to 4 weeks
Payroll & Compliance Included on Managed Staffing You manage Included in rate
Vetting Process Human + AI verified You screen Recruiter screened
Candidate spam Screened out before you see a profile Common Low
Tool Verification Verified per candidate Self-reported Rarely verified
Free Replacements 24 months on Managed Staffing, 6 months on Direct Hire None Variable
See all comparison

Testimonials

Trusted by teams that hire with us

  • LATAM has been a gold mine for talent. Our CloudTask hires understand our company culture and mission, and they connect with our customers in a way that drives high NPS and CX scores.
    David Barrett
    David Barrett CEO, Expensify
  • At first we were an SF-based team only. Then I met Amir Reiter back in 2018. After visiting Medellín, I knew LATAM would be key to our growth and success.
    Tim Zheng
    Tim Zheng CEO, Apollo.io
  • After meeting my CX and CS team in Medellín, we immediately loved the culture and the work ethic. As a European-HQ company, we found LATAM to be perfect to service our American clients.
    Carl Carell
    Carl Carell CRO and Co-founder, GetAccept

SKILLS

Top skills to look for in a PHP developer

PHP runs a large part of the web, from brand-new apps to code older than your team. These are the skills that decide whether a PHP developer can change it safely.

  • Modern PHP

    Strict types, namespaces, Composer autoloading and PSR standards, instead of includes and global functions.

  • Legacy refactoring

    Finds seams in old code, adds tests around them and improves it in small steps rather than a risky rewrite.

  • Security basics

    Prepared statements, output escaping, password hashing and session handling, applied everywhere, not only on new code.

  • Static analysis

    Uses PHPStan or Psalm to catch type errors and dead code in a codebase too large to read line by line.

  • Database work

    Writes efficient SQL, adds the right indexes and moves queries out of templates and loops.

  • Version upgrades

    Moves an application to a newer PHP version, fixing deprecations and incompatible extensions along the way.

  • Tests where there were none

    Starts with tests that pin down current behavior, so every later change can be checked.

  • AI output, reviewed

    Uses coding assistants for boilerplate and tests, and reviews every generated query and input handler before it ships.

HIRING GUIDE

How to hire PHP developers

Modern PHP and legacy PHP are different jobs, and most job posts do not say which one they mean. This guide covers how to define the role, what to test, the red flags and when a dedicated PHP developer is the wrong hire.

What does a PHP developer do?

Builds and maintains server-side applications in PHP: web applications and APIs, integrations, admin tools and often the application that has run the business for a decade.

Day to day that means shipping changes, reviewing code, upgrading PHP and its dependencies and making old code safer to change.

Modern PHP or legacy PHP: say which

A developer who builds new features on a current framework and one who maintains a large application written before frameworks were common need different strengths. The second needs patience, testing discipline and refactoring skill.

Describe your codebase honestly in the brief: PHP version, framework or none, size and test coverage. It changes who is the right match.

PHP, Laravel or Symfony?

If your application is built on Laravel, hire a Laravel developer; the framework conventions matter. If it runs on Symfony, name it. If it is custom PHP, hire for the language and for refactoring experience.

For CMS work on WordPress, Drupal or Joomla, the platform knowledge matters as much as the language, so name the platform too.

Upgrading and modernizing safely

Old PHP versions stop getting security fixes, and old code often depends on extensions and patterns that newer versions remove.

Ask the candidate how they would upgrade an application with few tests. A strong answer adds tests first, uses static analysis to find incompatibilities and ships the upgrade in steps.

What to test in a PHP developer interview

Give a small task close to your real work: an endpoint or form that reads and writes to a database, validates input and has a test. Read how they handle SQL, escaping and errors.

Then show them a piece of old procedural PHP and ask what they would change first. A strong answer protects behavior with a test before moving anything.

Red flags in PHP developer candidates

SQL built from strings. Concatenating user input into queries in the interview task is a security hole waiting in your code.

Rewrite first. A candidate whose answer to legacy code is always a full rewrite will stall your roadmap for months.

Stuck on old habits. Global variables, includes everywhere and no Composer in new code signal that modern PHP is not their daily practice.

Errors switched off. Hiding warnings instead of fixing them leaves bugs that surface only in production.

Generated code they cannot explain. Ask them to walk through code they wrote with an AI assistant. If they cannot say how it handles input, nobody has reviewed it.

When should you not hire a dedicated PHP developer?

When the application is small and stable and changes a few times a year. A full-time developer will not have enough to do.

It is also the wrong hire when nobody on your side can review code or set priorities. A single developer with no technical lead and no product owner tends to build what is interesting instead of what the business needs.

How much does it cost to hire a PHP developer?

It depends on seniority, the scope of the work and the country the person works from, and any single number describes one scenario and calls it a price.

What is worth understanding is the shape. On Managed Staffing it is one all-in monthly rate per person, with payments, compliance and replacement cover inside it. On Direct Hire it is a one-time fee of 20% to 30% of first-year base salary and the person goes on your payroll. We quote your number before you interview anyone.

Why hire a PHP developer in Latin America?

Overlap. Development runs on code review, standups and incidents, and Latin America and the Caribbean share most of the US working day, so those happen in real time instead of overnight.

The second reason is communication. Your developer writes pull request descriptions, technical notes and status updates in English, and we screen English live on a call.

How does CloudTask hire for this role?

You send the PHP version and framework you run, the state of the codebase, your database and hosting, the kind of work and the hours you need covered. We source against that brief and come back with 3 to 5 matched profiles within 48 hours, each one screened on a live call and checked against the stack you named.

You interview and choose. On Managed Staffing we handle payments, compliance and onboarding and stay involved with check-ins. On Direct Hire the person joins your payroll from day one. Both carry a replacement guarantee: 24 months on Managed Staffing, 6 months on Direct Hire.

FAQ

The fine print, in plain terms.

What is the difference between a PHP developer and a Laravel developer?
PHP is the language; Laravel is a framework written in it. A Laravel developer specializes in building applications with Laravel conventions. A PHP developer may work on custom or legacy code, Symfony or a CMS. If your app is on Laravel, hire for Laravel.
Can a PHP developer take over our legacy application?
Yes, and that is often the job. Describe the PHP version, the framework or lack of one and the test coverage in the brief, and ask candidates how they would add tests before changing anything.
Can they upgrade our PHP version?
Yes, if the brief says so. Tell us the version you run and the one you need, and each profile is checked for upgrade experience.
How fast can a PHP developer start?
You get 3 to 5 matched profiles within 48 hours. After you choose, plan the first week for access, a walkthrough of the code and a small first change that goes to production.
What is the $299 for?
It starts your search. One time, not a subscription. It applies to your first placement or toward a buyout, so it is not an extra cost, it is the first part of one.
Why is there no number on the monthly rate?
Because it depends on the role, the seniority and the country. We quote the all-in monthly rate per person before you interview, so you know the number before you commit to anyone.
Who is the legal employer?
On Managed Staffing, CloudTask is the contracting party and handles payments and compliance, and you direct the work. On Direct Hire, you employ and manage the hire from day one.
How does tracking work, and can I turn it off?
On Managed Staffing, time and activity tracking is on by default. Talk to us about your setup when you start your search.
What happens if the person does not work out?
Managed Staffing carries a 24-month replacement guarantee, and replacements are not capped. Direct Hire carries a 6-month replacement guarantee: one replacement for the same job description.
Is there a platform or subscription fee?
No. $299 starts your search, one time, and applies toward your first placement. There is no subscription.

Ready to hire?

3 to 5 matches in 48 hours. Start with a quick role brief to get your shortlist.

Get matched