Hire PHP Developer — legacy code, Laravel builds, and APIs that survive production
When you hire a PHP developer, you’re really buying judgment about the ecosystem: PHP 8.x performance, Composer dependency hygiene, OPcache tuning, and what to do with a five-year-old codebase nobody wants to touch. I staff, scope, and lead PHP engagements so the build ships clean and stays maintainable long after handover.
I'm Omer Muneer Qazi, a Dubai-based Fractional CTO & Solutions Architect with 15+ years of experience and 100+ projects delivered across 6 countries. Your project gets one accountable engineer-owner from day one: scoped milestones and weekly demos you can verify. Also available: my Laravel developer hiring page.
Senior PHP engineering, not just PHP coding
PHP 8.x Builds & Upgrades
New features, extensions, and migrations from legacy PHP 7.x to 8.x with strict typing, attribute-based routing, and deprecation cleanup, verified by a full test suite and staged rollout.
Composer Dependency Audits
Your vendor directory stops being a mystery. I lock versions, remove abandoned packages, patch known CVEs, and document the upgrade path so installs stay reproducible across environments.
OPcache & Performance Tuning
Slow pages get profiled, not guessed at. I tune OPcache, fix N+1 database calls, add query and response caching, and set the performance baseline your hosting actually needs.
Legacy Codebase Modernization
Spaghetti code becomes a structured application. I refactor toward PSR standards, introduce autoloading and dependency injection, and wrap critical paths in tests before any risky change.
REST & JSON API Development
Clean, versioned APIs with proper authentication, rate limiting, and error handling that mobile apps and frontends can consume without surprises. Built on PHP 8.x with OpenAPI documentation and integration tests covering every endpoint.
Security Hardening
Input validation, prepared statements, CSRF protection, and secure session handling, plus a review of file-upload and authentication flows where breaches usually start. I fix what’s found and leave you a prioritized remediation checklist.
From first call to production
A structured engagement with no surprises — you’ll always know what’s happening and what’s next.
Discovery & Scope
We map your requirements, existing code, and infrastructure in a focused technical review, then I define milestones, timeline, and the exact deliverables you’ll get.
Architecture First
Before a line of code ships, we agree on the stack, data model, and integration points so there are no expensive mid-project surprises.
Build in Weekly Slices
Working software every week: tested code, a staging link, and a short demo so you always know exactly where the project stands.
Handover & Support
Documented code, deployment runbooks, and a recorded walkthrough. Your team takes over confidently; I’m available for follow-on phases after launch.
Why hire PHP through a Fractional CTO
Most PHP projects don’t fail on syntax — they fail on architecture nobody owns: duplicated queries, unpatched dependencies, and deployment rituals one person understands. I’ve spent 15+ years untangling those messes across 100+ projects, and that pattern recognition lands in your codebase from the first commit.
You get a single accountable owner: scoped milestones, honest timelines, weekly demos, and code your team can maintain. Tell me about the project on my contact page and I’ll scope it properly.
Frequently asked questions
How fast can we start?
Discovery calls happen within days, and scoped work typically starts within one to two weeks. If your codebase needs an urgent audit first, that diagnostic phase can begin almost immediately.
Do you work with legacy PHP codebases?
Yes — legacy modernization is a specialty. I audit the existing code, wrap critical paths in tests, then refactor incrementally toward PHP 8.x without breaking what already works.
Can you take over from an existing developer?
Absolutely. I start with a code and infrastructure audit, document how everything runs, and establish the test and deployment baseline before making changes, so nothing breaks silently.
How do you handle communication across time zones?
I’m Dubai-based and deliver worldwide — 100+ projects across 6 countries so far. We agree overlapping hours, keep updates in writing, and run a weekly demo.
What does the engagement look like?
Scoped milestones with fixed deliverables, weekly demos on staging, and full documentation at handover. You always know what’s done, what’s next, and what it costs before we begin.
Let’s scope your PHP project
Tell me what you’re building or fixing. You’ll get a scoped plan, an honest timeline, and a clear path to production.