PHP Developer for Hire — PHP 8.4, Laravel 13, Modernization Specialist

What I ship as a PHP developer

In plain terms: PHP is the language behind a lot of the business software you already run — WordPress sites, Drupal portals, custom client portals, old "internal tools" your team built years ago. I keep that software running, modernize it when it starts costing too much to maintain, and replace it with something faster and safer when modernization is no longer the right answer. The technical breakdown:

• New PHP 8.4 + Laravel 13 applications. A brand-new web app, written in the current version of PHP and Laravel so you don't have to modernize it for several years. Greenfield builds with the version-current framework story.
• Legacy modernization. Your decade-old PHP application brought current — faster, safer, and supported by current PHP versions. PHP 5.6 / 7.x codebases migrated to PHP 8.4 with type declarations, strict mode, Composer-managed dependencies, and PHPStan / Pint enforcement.
• Performance + security audits. A written report on why your PHP app is slow or vulnerable, plus the patches to fix it. OPcache tuning, FPM configuration, Xdebug-driven profiling, security review for SQL injection / XSS / CSRF / IDOR / auth issues.
• PHPUnit + Pest test coverage. An automated test suite added to a codebase that did not have one — so future changes do not break what already works. Bringing a codebase from "no tests" to "the CI pipeline blocks merges on red".
• Integration work. Connecting your PHP app to other systems — payment processors, CRMs, accounting software, third-party APIs. Composer packages, third-party API integrations, queue workers, cron-driven batch processes.

PHP 8.4 — what changed and why it matters

PHP 8.4 ships property hooks, asymmetric visibility, lazy objects, an HTML5 DOM parser, and a quiet but important deprecation campaign that prunes legacy footguns. For buyers, the practical effect is that code written today reads more like modern statically-typed languages — closer to the Java/Kotlin/Rust mental model than the PHP 5 string-soup model — without sacrificing the deployment story PHP is famously good at. PHP 8.4 is a meaningful step up from 8.3 for any team writing new code.

Modernizing legacy PHP — the discipline

Most legacy PHP modernization engagements I take start with a codebase that was last upgraded three or four major versions ago. The discipline is not "rewrite it" — the discipline is increment the version with a written plan, a Pest test suite, and a working CI pipeline that proves each step. PHP 5.6 → 7.4 → 8.0 → 8.4 is a multi-week sequence, not a weekend project. Each step has its own deprecation list. Each step is verifiable in CI. The plan is in writing before the first composer require.

Who hires me as a PHP developer

Buyers running mid-2010s WordPress, Drupal, CodeIgniter, custom-PHP, or early-Laravel applications who have hit a maintenance wall. Buyers who tried offshore modernization, received a half-finished migration, and need a single senior to finish it. SaaS founders building greenfield in Laravel 13 + PHP 8.4 who want the version-current stack from day one.

How a PHP engagement is scoped

Same shape as the Laravel engagement: scoping call, written specification, two-week sprints, Pest tests alongside features, handover with runbook and 30-day support window. The difference is the entry point — for legacy modernization, sprint zero is the version-step plan; for greenfield PHP 8.4 + Laravel 13, sprint one starts with the data model.