Other - PHP jobs

Hey,

I hope this the right forum to post this in. I was just hoping to get some advice on jobs in php development.

My background is I have a computer science degree but I've been working in consultancy since graduation for around 4 years. Following that I worked on a support role where I worked with drupal,php,html,css etc for around a year.

I then left to work on my own project which I built in PHP using codeigniter. The project hasn't really taken off so I need to go back to work.

I loved the work I've done in web dev and really want to carry on doing it. But all the jobs I see require several years experience and you have to have extensive javascript, etc

As a 29 year old is it too late for me to try and move into PHP dev? Is there any advice you can give to how I can try and get jobs? I've been sending my CV around but not hearing back. I really don't want to move back into consultancy.

I don't mind about the salary as I figure I need to prove myself as I don't really have commercial experience in PHP dev. I live in the east bay of CA and competition is pretty tough.

Thanks for any advice!

East bay is going to be cutthroat, nothing you can do about that.

You graduated, worked as a general purpose consultant for 4 years, worked support for a web/php project for a year, then were self-employed on a PHP project for an additional year? That would be enough experience for most entry-level junior dev roles. I wonder why you're having such trouble.

Even if you don't have extensive back-of-your-hand JavaScript knowledge, you can still put it on your CV or Resume. I hate javascript. Hate it. I will often spend hours on JS that a colleague can do in 20 minutes. I just don't like it. It's still on my resume though, and I'm honest about it in interviews. The resume gets you past the bots and the HR people who can't tell the difference between Cisco and XML.

Get your foot in the door by spamming any technology you're comfortable with on your resume. Then be honest in the interview. I tell people I'm capable of working with JS, but I'm primarily a back-end large-scale architect in PHP. Similarly, I'm capable of debugging perl, and writing simple python scripts to get things done, but for a large scale project I'd fall back to PHP. That's usually good enough for most people.

Yeah I guess the main issue is there really aren't that many opportunities for junior roles out there. Any tips on where to look?

Not really. Standard places, I'd think. Craigslist, monster, dice, etc.

Yeah I've been checking those out, rarely do they have entry level php roles round here. Guess its networking more than anything.

The funny thing is in the UK I had 7 interviews lined up for php developer roles.

No worries, thanks for replying tho appreciate it a lot.