Our new developers were able to hit the ground running, we've worked with them for over two years now, and they are truly part of our team.
Alison WhittleProduct Delivery Manager, BladeFSIn-house feel, nearshore
PHP Developers
Hire experienced PHP developers who are fluent in modern frameworks like Laravel, Symfony, and legacy systems alike. Our engineers plug into your stack, workflows, and team - ready to build, maintain, or modernize your PHP product.
- Laravel, Symfony, legacy PHP and more
- From greenfield builds to system rewrites
- Timezone-aligned and fully embedded
Legacy System SupportAPI DevelopmentBackend ArchitectureDatabase OptimizationTesting & CI/CD
Our Service
Embedded PHP Developers for Modern Builds
We place full-time PHP engineers who work inside your team. Whether it’s scaling a Laravel backend or upgrading old codebases, our devs are selected for both technical depth and collaborative mindset.
- Fully embedded - your team, your stack
- Scoped for your role and timezone
- Backed by our onboarding and support
Backed by our onboarding and support
Full-Stack PHP Expertise
- Skilled in Laravel, Symfony, CodeIgniter, and other modern PHP stacks.
- Legacy System SupportMaintain and improve existing codebases without disruption.
- API DevelopmentBuild robust REST and GraphQL APIs to power your frontend and mobile apps.
- Backend ArchitectureDesign scalable, modular backend systems aligned with your product needs.
- Database OptimizationOptimize MySQL and PostgreSQL performance and queries for scale.
- Testing & CI/CDEngineers who bake in tests and deploy cleanly via automated pipelines.
The alternative
Get speed, fit and in-house feel without the hiring grind.
Cloud EmployeeIn-house hiringDev agenciesFreelancers
Speed to hire✓-✓✓
Flexibility to scale✓-✓✓
Developer fit (embedded)✓✓✓-
Full-time, only for you✓✓--
No overhead or upfront fees✓--✓
Solid lime = yes · outline lime = partial · grey dash = no
Vetting
You see two people - not 200 CVs.
Engineers vet engineers
A senior engineer runs a live technical conversation on the candidate's real stack, not a recruiter working from a keyword list.
Live coding, not take-homes
Real problems solved in front of an assessor, with anti-cheating checks. You see how they actually work, not what they submitted overnight.
A full profile, not a CV
Every candidate arrives with a resume, interview summary, coding-test breakdown and rate. You decide on evidence.
Every tab is a stage a candidate has to clear. Six of them, all run by our own internal engineers at Cloud Employee, before you see a name.
- Overview
- CV
- Tech interview
- Coding test
- Psychometric
- Soft skills
Scored by people. We use AI to cross-check our own consistency - never to decide who reaches your shortlist.
✓Luka M.
VettedSenior PHP Engineer · PHP · Laravel · MySQL · 6 yrs · Zagreb, Croatia (GMT+1)
Assessment
Six years in production Python, the last three on LLM systems - retrieval pipelines, eval suites, and agent tooling for UK fintech. Owns delivery end to end.
Stack
Python · LangGraph
English
C1 fluent
Overlap
8 hrs UK
Notice
2 weeks
AI in practiceShips with Copilot and Claude Code daily, and rewrote 40% of the generated code in his observed task - the judgement is his, the tooling only makes him faster.
Career history
2023 - now
Senior AI Engineer
UK payments platform · 40-person product team
Built the retrieval assistant now resolving 30% of tier-1 tickets; owns its eval suite and guardrails.
2020 - 2023
Backend Engineer, Python
Travel booking SaaS · Zagreb
Moved fraud scoring onto a real-time feature pipeline; cut false declines by 18%.
2019 - 2020
Data Engineer
Agency · Python, Postgres, AWS
- Python
- FastAPI
- LangGraph
- pgvector
- Evals & tracing
- AWS
- Docker
Technical interview
Assessed by Marco R., Principal Engineer
12 Jun 2026
55 min · live call
"Walked me through an assistant that was quietly hallucinating refund policy, how he caught it in evals, and what he got wrong on the first fix. Hire-ready for a senior seat."
Live coding test
Fix an N+1 query in a live endpoint
88
score
Tests passed
21 / 21
Time used
62 of 90 min
Anti-cheat flags
0
retrieval.py · submitted diff
- hits = index.query(q, k=50)+ hits = index.query(rewrite(q), k=50, filter=tenant)+ hits = rerank(hits, q)[:8] # recall 0.62 -> 0.91+ assert_context_budget(hits, max_tokens=6000)
Psychometric · technical thinking
How he reasons under a real deadline - not a personality quiz.
Top 9%of engineers
we test
A 45-minute reasoning test, scored against the 4,000+ engineers we have already placed. Our assessors do the marking - AI only flags where our own scoring looks inconsistent.
Soft skills · working with your team
Spoken English
C1 · assessed on call
References
2 of 2 verified
"He raised the payment edge case nobody else had spotted, in writing, two days before release."
This is what you receive - not a CV.
Ask our AI anythingWhy Cloud Employee?
PHP engineers who feel in-house
Unlike platforms or agencies, our model embeds senior PHP engineers directly into your workflow. We handle sourcing, onboarding, and retention - so you get delivery from day one.
- Scoped by role, timezone & team culture
- Ongoing support, HR, and infrastructure
- Retention-first dev care, not just placements
Not Just Developers - A Whole Operation
We manage hiring, onboarding & retention - so your devs stay focused.
Fully supported
We handle the rest so your engineers can focus on building.
Performance reviews
Payroll & complianceEquipment
WorkspaceIn-house, without the friction
No upfront fees. No lock-in contracts.
- No placement or upfront fees
- Rolling 30-day contract, cancel anytime
- One monthly rate, everything included
Ready to find your engineer?
Tell us exactly who you need.
In 90 seconds
Two matched engineers in 7 days. No fees, no obligation.
What role are you hiring for?
Pick one to start - you'll see matching engineers at the end.
- Founded in 2014
- 97% stay 2+ years
- Replace if it isn't working
Got questions?
The questions CTOs and founders ask.
01How do you manage time zone differences?
We align our working hours with your time zone, and ensure overlap for real-time collaboration. We also have team members available for critical support outside standard hours.
02How is Cloud Employee different from a recruitment company?
Entirely different. We take no placement fees, and you pay nothing to interview candidates; you only pay if you hire. Vetting is technical and led by our in-house CTO, with peer reviews from our senior engineers to avoid mishires.
And we do not stop after recruitment. We work with you month on month as a partner, you have a dedicated account manager and CTO behind you, and if a developer does not work out we find a replacement with no re-hire fee. We are invested in the long term, and we act like it.
03Is there a minimum number of employees I need to hire?
No - you can hire just one employee and receive the same excellent level of service.
04What if a developer doesn't perform as expected?
You feed this back to your dedicated account manager, who will then work with you to find solutions. We have a robust HR team physically on-the-ground in our Philippines and Latin America offices, who work with our learning and development. Sometimes peer training with our other developers, or a conversation with our CTO, quickly improves any issues. If not, we find you a new hire, free of charge.
05Do I communicate directly with the developer working with me?
Yes absolutely. Developers plug directly into your day-to-day communication channels - company email, Slack channels, Discord, etc. Your developer is fully integrated into your team, even down to updating their LinkedIn with your company as their employer if you would prefer.
In fact, if you hire more than 4 developers, we will also contribute $3,000 toward a trip for your developer to visit you, or for you to visit our beautiful offices in Manila and/or Latin America to meet and work with your developers in person once per year.
06How quickly can you scale my team if needed?
We recently scaled a full technical team of 28 developers and technical experts for one client in a single month. If you provide us all of the information we need, we can move very quickly.
07What level of project management support do you provide?
We can hire project managers specifically for your project. We also advise you on the level of seniority and team mix required for your project and wider company needs, ensuring you have the right people to self-manage.
08What does your discovery call process entail?
Expect to talk through your needs and for us to offer you support and advice. From there, if we're a good fit, we set you up with a call with our CTO and your account manager to provide feedback and/or develop job descriptions alongside you.
09How is Cloud Employee different from a freelancer platform?
Entirely. Forget one-off jobs, security risks and project to project work. Read more here.
10Can I visit your offices and meet my Cloud Employee/s?
We encourage clients to visit our offices to meet and spend time working with their Cloud Employee team. We've made sure that our offices are well-equipped and always welcoming to our clients.
In fact, if you hire 4 or more Cloud Employees, we will cover your flights and accommodation to visit our offices and work with your team. This is up to $3,000 worth of value.
Proof, not promises
Hear from our customers
In their words
What the difference feels like
Alison WhittleProduct Delivery Manager, BladeFSWhat I love about Cloud Employee is that you have taken all of that hard work off my shoulders.
Marcus KilgourCTO, Salmon SoftwareWorking with Cloud Employee developers is great, because they're not afraid to push back. They're proactive, they're positive, and they feel like part of the team.
Doran EskinaziHead of Engineering, HealthpointeWe actually hired the whole team remotely, having never met them. And we made a bunch of really good hires.
Euan CameronCEO, WilloCloud Employee provides a level of professionalism, communication and support we haven't found elsewhere.
Trevor SathorManaging Director, Square EyeWorking in tandem with Cloud Employee we have successfully released a major version of our main software product during a critical period for us.
James StringerManaging Director, CleanLink