PHP Developer job interview this week any tips?

cadkins23

I'm unemployed and looking for work. Most of my work history has been in the Customer Service field, which I've been trying to exit.

I'm 29 years old. In 1997 I took a HTML class and fell in love with making the most basic of websites. For years I would pay others to code dynamic database driven sites for me as well as make modifications. I would attempt to make modifications, but in the beginning I didn't do a very good job.

In 2006 I launched a site that quickly grew to house nearly 200,000 members. I was still hiring freelancers occasionally but didn't feel comfortable giving access to such a popular website. That's about when I started messing with PHP/MySQL/Javascript a bit more.

If we jump to the present time, I consider myself a decent coder now. I recently just finished coding a brand new social network for myself and am pretty happy with the results. I've been doing my own modifications and adding features to my sites for nearly 4 years now. I love coding, I feel like it's an ongoing accomplishment. It's very easy for me to get caught up in coding for hours, mainly because it is so much fun for me.

I had an initial interview for a PHP developer position here in town, and it went really well. There weren't very many technical questions but he did tell me that they will most likely be having me come in for a more formal interview because it went pretty good.

The next interview will be more technical. I recently had a phone interview with another company, and I was nervous and couldn't think of what ucwords was used for, until I got off the phone and it hit me.

I've already been told that .NET knowledge isn't required but that I would be expected to somewhat learn it in the near future as they will be going that route shortly. That's fine, I can do what I have to in order to learn .NET if that's what I have to do but I still have to make an impression to get hired.

For the time being, I am concerned that my self taught ways of coding may not be up-to-par with what can be seen with professional coders. If I download a script or offer to modify a script for someone, I am often bombarded by a template system which I usually try to stay away from. I understand however that a template may be more practical to separate the code from the layout of the pages. Another thing that I notice while looking at a professional script is sometimes it seems they know a different PHP than I know 😉 I see things sometimes that make me wonder if I really know PHP or not. Perhaps in time you learn shortcuts and more shorthand code but some things I see with percentage signs and what not are a little confusing. Mainly because I've yet to use these in my own code. I've managed to accomplish so much with what I already know.

I see professional code uses a lot of OOP or at least what I consider OOP to be. Instead of having several lines of code such as the following:

$sql="select * from `users` where `user_id` = '$_SESSION[userid]'";
$qryd=mysql_query($sql);
$dataset=mysql_fetch_array($qryd);
$username=$dataset[username];

They'll use a more stream lined approach where a class has been initialized beforehand that contains functions to get things like the username: (ex.)

$username=$general->get_username($_SESSION[userid]);

I'm ready to get off unemployment and really need this job, but I worry that I won't be good enough lol - The people I code for think I'm a guru but that's because they themselves don't code. I've gone a long way in the past few years picking up on things here and there. At one time I would have to copy/paste queries and modify them, not I find it easier to just code queries right out of my head. I'm starting to store my functions in a file and use code like the 2nd example above.

The position is somewhat of an entry level position who would be reporting to more of a senior level developer. I'm planning on giving it everything I've got so that I can make a change out of Customer Service and so that I can stop being unemployed.

I guess my question to you guys is do you have any tips on what I should familiarize myself with before the interview as well as any other tips that I may be able to use?

Thanks!

laserlight

cadkins23 wrote:
The next interview will be more technical. I recently had a phone interview with another company, and I was nervous and couldn't think of what ucwords was used for, until I got off the phone and it hit me.

A good response if you forget is to admit that you have forgotten, but point out that you could easily look it up in the PHP manual if the need arose.

cadkins23 wrote:
For the time being, I am concerned that my self taught ways of coding may not be up-to-par with what can be seen with professional coders.

As you say, "the position is somewhat of an entry level position who would be reporting to more of a senior level developer", so that should not be a problem.

cadkins23 wrote:
Another thing that I notice while looking at a professional script is sometimes it seems they know a different PHP than I know I see things sometimes that make me wonder if I really know PHP or not. Perhaps in time you learn shortcuts and more shorthand code but some things I see with percentage signs and what not are a little confusing.

This sounds like the use of format specifiers as in [man]sprintf/man. Again, if you are going to have a mentor, you can always approach him/her when you cannot figure out the code yourself. (But searching the Web can help you figure out a lot of code by yourself, and asking too many times when you could have searched for it can irritate the more senior level developer.)

cadkins23 wrote:
I see professional code uses a lot of OOP or at least what I consider OOP to be. (...) They'll use a more stream lined approach where a class has been initialized beforehand that contains functions to get things like the username

To be honest, the way that you described it, and your choice of $general for the variable name, makes it sound more like procedural programming with object oriented syntactic sugar rather than OOP 🙂

I tend to see OOP in the light of OO design, i.e., to model something as a class/object, and to consider the relationships between objects (e.g., "has-a" versus "is-a", and the differences between association, aggregation and composition). From this flows the commonly mentioned concepts/techniques of abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism.

cadkins23 wrote:
At one time I would have to copy/paste queries and modify them, not I find it easier to just code queries right out of my head.

You probably already have some understanding of it by now, but if you have not, learn about database normalisation. You do not need to know the theory in depth: just know enough so that you can apply it appropriately most of the time.

bpat1434

Number one rule that gets our new hires into trouble: Do Not Lie about anything!! Be upfront. If you don't know, or can't remember, state it as such! If you need to "BS" your way through an answer, don't, unless you're trying to explain in a round-about way that you know what they're asking, but can't think of exactly what they're expecting (like "semantic markup").

I got hired for a mid-level programmer spot with only the education I got from here (kudos to PHPBuilder and the community) and books I picked up as I went. I was also in a spot where I had developed a couple other sites I could show them, and that was enough. My technical interview had some stumbles, but I didn't lie, nor did I embellish. The coding interview (where I had to actually code as they watched) went horribly. THe internet crashed while I was there, so I had no on-line materials, and I wasn't able to really set up anything that worked; however, because they saw what avenue I was going down, they gave me the benefit of the doubt. Now, almost 1.5 years later, I'm their "expert" in Magento and have taken sites from start to finish for them.

Remember, entry level is entry level. If they say you're not up to their standards for "entry-level" they probably meant "junior" instead of entry.

And of course, do everything with a smile! And don't be afraid to ask for help if/when you need it. You'd be surprised how big of hints interviewers are willing to give to get an answer from you 😉 It might just be something to jog your memory enough. For example, given your ucwords question, you could say: "It does something to the words in a string, but I can't think of exactly what". It's close enough to know that you have knowledge of it, but might not have used it enough to warrant memorizing it. I know there were plenty of php functions I knew when I got hired that other senior programmers didn't. But if you asked for a hint about it, they might say something like "It does something to the words in a string" and that might be enough for you to say "Okay, yeah... UC.... hmm... maybe, upper case words? That's it! Transform the first letter in all words to an upper case!".

catboymike

I am a freelance [URL removed -- MOD] PHP developer and i am very glad that I ran into these. It may not be my immediate need but It would come in very handy for the coming days. Thank you contributors!

Shrike

I conduct the web developer interviews at my company, so here are a few tips for you based on my experience.

Stick with what you know. It's alot better to admit you don't know something rather than trying to talk your way out.

Don't overcook your CV. I couldn't care less if you have 10 years in Microsoft Word, but if you say you have experience with web services I am going to ask you about it.

In the technical portion of the interview, show willingness even if you don't know the answers. Your not being tested on your knowledge, but your ability to analyse and solve problems. I sometimes ask junior interviewees to write a function to calculate n!, but really I just want to see how they approach the problem.

Prepare some questions to ask beforehand. Research the company and think of some interesting talking points. If possible relate this to your own experience.

Oh and wear a suit :evilgrin:

Good luck!

dalecosp

Love it, Shrike!

You must dress appropriately. Suits are appropriate for many companies. If they never wear them, then khakis, a nice button-down dress/oxford shirt and a pair of leather loafers will serve you well.
Send a thank you e-mail as soon as you get home.
Send a thank you letter (preferably on paper matching your resume) that will arrive
in three days or less. Indicate your commitment and excitement to work for the company (but don't seem desperate), remind them of your strong points (as they relate to the position) and offer to answer any further questions via e-mail, phone, or another interview.
Make a follow-up phone call on day five. (You should have asked about this during the interview ... "I'd like to follow up with you by phone in four or five days. Would this be OK?")

blackhorse

"In 2006 I launched a site that quickly grew to house nearly 200,000 members."

That is amazing. It is your personal site or it is your company's site? With the experience like this, are you sure you want to go for entry level coding?

I was interviewed for a position that I would be the only developer for 1.5 years contract. After the interview, I sent them a detailed develop plan. I got the offer due to that and discussed the further detailed plan with them in the following up meetings. But before I started, they told me their project was delayed for a few months. I think either they took my idea and run or they realized with my plan, they really didn't need a full time developer for 1.5 years (that was I think about their project too). But anyway, follow up an email after the interview will help you. 🙂

Also yes. If you don't know the answer but you know work around answer, that will be better than tell them you don't know. You have been doing coding by yourself. So I think this situation might come up. Tell them how did you solve the same issues in your past projects in your self taught ways. For example if they ask you to do a replace in mysql sql statement but you don't know how. Tell them, you never did that before but you can find it out in mysql manual if it comes up in the real work. But at the same time, you can tell them, you did the replace in php before, so you can query the data out and do the replace in php.

And also important, due to you were self taught and not did too many coding before, you may not use MVC approach before. Depends on how much time you have before the next interview, you may want quickly catch up with some quick knowledge of MVC in php, it would be asked. Specially if they are going to transfer to asp.net. It would be your weakness, but if you have a few days, pick up a php MVC framework, set up a test site, try to rewrite one or two component of your old project in MVC approach. I would suggest trying out codeignter which is light weight, clean and simple. rewrite a simple old application you did before in codeigniter.

dalecosp

Umm, so --- didja get the job?