How To Become An Senior PHP Developer: What It Is and Career Path

What is an senior php developer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Brian Glas

As a Senior PHP Developer, you will design and develop web applications, even websites, with the use of the PHP scripting language. You will also liaise with clients and aim to meet their needs after identifying them. You will write clean codes, troubleshoot errors, and produce specific systems, among others.

As a Senior PHP Developer, you need to be creative. You will face problems along the way, so creativity is important to easily solve these problems in the best way possible. Next is customer service skills. You will be working with clients and consumers, so you should know them well and understand their needs. Lastly is concentration. You might feel like you're dealing with a lot most times, but you need to be able to stay focused on the tasks you have.

A Senior PHP Developer can earn an annual average salary of $101,767, with a 13% job growth rate, and you also have the chance to further your career. For instance, you can be a Lead Developer, a Project Leader, a Vice President, and a Chief Technology Officer. It all depends on your skills and goals.

What general advice would you give to an senior php developer?

Brian Glas

Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Union University

Build relationships: Different technologies will interest and challenge you, but throughout your career, you'll find that it's the relationships that are the most important. This is harder to grasp earlier in your career, but much easier to understand after 15-20 years.
Gain different perspectives: Spend time with people in other roles that your job interacts with, and gain a solid understanding of how they view things; this is most valuable for career progression and understanding of how your work fits into the big picture.

ScoreSenior PHP DeveloperUS Average

Salary

7.9

Avg. Salary $109,614

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.2

Growth rate 13%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

1.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.42%

Asian 15.86%

Black or African American 6.42%

Hispanic or Latino 11.97%

Unknown 6.50%

White 58.82%

Gender

female 11.78%

male 88.22%

Age - 36

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 36

Stress level

5.2

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.3

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.8

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an senior php developer

Explore senior php developer education requirements

Most common senior php developer degrees

Bachelor's

69.0 %

Master's

22.2 %

Associate

4.4 %

Start to develop specific senior php developer skills

Skills	Percentages
JavaScript	9.03%
CSS	5.94%
GIT	5.36%
Front-End	4.75%
WordPress	4.60%

Complete relevant senior php developer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior php developers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an senior php developer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior php developer resumes.

Research senior php developer duties and responsibilities

Manage deployment of the project in Linux base active-active load balance cluster server.
Manage multiple web and database servers in multiple locations to ensure constant availability, functionality, synchronization and security.
Develop user interface using HTML, XHTML, CSS, JSON and JavaScript to simplify the complexities of the application.
Create UI prototype with website structure, layouts, modules using CSS3, HTML for client acceptance.

Get senior php developer experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become an senior php developer. The most common roles before becoming an senior php developer include php developer, web developer team lead and developer.

Prepare your senior php developer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior php developer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an senior php developer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

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