PHP Developer interview questions and answers
This set of PHP Developer interview questions is designed to help you during your hiring process for a PHP Developer position in your company.
PHP Developer Interview Questions
PHP Developers are part of the Back-end Developers team, writing code for the server side of web applications. They develop back-end components, connect applications with other (often third-party) web services and support the Front-end Developers by integrating their work.
PHP can be quite tricky, therefore you need candidates with a solid technical background and excellent coding skills. Use these questions to determine your candidates’ levels of experience and knowledge and shortlist those who match your specific criteria. You can include an assignment to compliment your hiring process and better evaluate your candidates’ skills.
Candidates who are able to demonstrate a strong passion for programming should stand out. As with all developers roles, it’s important to identify candidates who show a keen interest in attending seminars or reading relevant books. Don’t hesitate to ask about other fun projects they’re likely to get involved with, like game development. This way, you’ll identify candidates who enjoy learning new thing and are driven by curiosity and creativity.
Computer Science questions
- What’s PEAR in PHP?
- What’s the difference between the include() and require() functions?
- What are the differences between PHP constants and variables?
- What is the difference between an interface and an abstract class?
Role-specific questions
- What error types have you faced and how did you fix them?
- If you need to generate random numbers in PHP, what method would you follow?
- How can you get web browser’s details using PHP?
- How would you set cookies in your website?
- Are you familiar with SQL? How would you create a MySql database using PHP?
- What are your duties in the software development lifecycle?
- Explain how you develop and integrate plugins for PHP frameworks, like Laravel and Yii.
- What features would you develop to increase user experience quality? Name any examples you find appropriate.
- What’s your experience with open source projects like Joomla, Drupal or osCommerce?
- Can you give some examples of best design and coding practices?
- How can HTML, CSS, Javascript or AJAX help you when designing a web application?
- Describe the troubleshooting process you follow when a program doesn’t run properly.
Behavioral questions
- What’s a fun project that you’ve worked on recently?
- If you could attend any tech seminar, which one would you choose and why?
- How do you ensure you discover all current programming trends?
- Describe a situation where you collaborated with developers and engineers to complete a project. What was your contribution to the team?