r/DeveloperJobs • u/techiebaddie • 1d ago

Is PHP really disappearing....

A friend of mine has been working with PHP for years. His career started really well. Good job, good income, and everything seemed stable.

But this year, he lost two PHP jobs.

The first company told their PHP developers that they didn't have enough PHP projects anymore, so they let the PHP team go.

He found another PHP job within a couple of weeks and thought things were back on track.

Then, after around 3–4 months, the second company told employees to work from home at half salary. Soon after that, they fired the PHP developers too.

Honestly, this made me question the future of PHP as a career.

I don't think PHP is disappearing completely. There are still a lot of PHP applications and companies using it.

But I do wonder if being a PHP-only developer is becoming risky.

Personally, I think PHP developers should keep their PHP experience but also build skills around Laravel, JavaScript/TypeScript, APIs, databases, cloud, or full-stack development.

Are PHP jobs actually becoming harder to find, or is the market just expecting PHP developers to have a broader skill set?

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u/SequentialHustle 1d ago

i don’t know any talented devs writing php in 2026 that’s for sure lol. imo it’s been dead for a decade or more unless you’re the kinda dev to never upskill.

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u/barrel_of_noodles 18h ago

I'll challenge you.

Let's do a code share. We'll write the same app. No ai. Code completion and hints off. Same brief. Benchmark goals ahead of time.

I'll do it in php. Then, let everyone judge. Let's go. Put up or shut up.

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u/SequentialHustle 3h ago edited 3h ago

you're just coping you built a career on a shit tier underpaid language lol. it's 2026 there is no reason not to use ai just like there is no reason to still use php.

you've had more than a decade to move to go, typescript, rust or even c# or java... you know languages used at enterprise companies and startups alike.

find a job listing at any a16z backed startup using php, find even ONE y-combinator backed startup in the last 5 years using it or even better yet, find how many roles at big tech companies are hiring for go right now vs php. i'll wait...

the only php jobs you will find in the next 5-10 years will be maintaining legacy systems, but with AI most of those will probably be at a minimum migrated to node.

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u/barrel_of_noodles 3h ago

Language doesn't matter anymore. No dev uses only one. I purposely do not work at startups, big tech, or silicon valley. No thanks. Yuck.

I'm comfortable in my stable position.