01Owns
Eloquent models and queries
Defines relationships and scopes, eager loads with with() and withCount(), and switches to the query builder when Eloquent hydration is too costly.
Hire · Backend
Hire Laravel Developers
Senior Laravel developers who join your team to work across Eloquent models, queued jobs, Livewire or Inertia front ends and the servers they deploy to. In a paid exercise ahead of any introduction, they have already fixed an Eloquent performance issue and a failing queue job.
Paid Laravel exercise before shortlisting
Senior and lead levels only
Joins your Git flow and code review
On your team
What a Laravel developer owns on your team.
02Owns
Queues and Horizon
Runs jobs on Redis queues supervised by Horizon, tunes worker balance per queue and keeps failed jobs visible and retryable.
03Owns
Livewire or Inertia front ends
Builds reactive pages with Livewire components or Inertia with Vue or React, depending on what your app already uses.
04Owns
Validation and authorisation
Uses form requests for validation and policies or gates for authorisation, so controllers stay thin and rules live in one place.
05Owns
Deployment and upgrades
Works with Forge, Vapor or your own servers, and moves the app through Laravel and PHP version upgrades with tests to back each step.
Separating Laravel craft from Laravel speed
Laravel lets developers produce working features very quickly, which makes it hard to tell apart candidates from a portfolio alone. The difference shows months later, in Eloquent queries that load relationships one row at a time, jobs that retry endlessly, and controllers carrying validation and authorisation inline. Ask candidates how they keep those three under control.
Strong answers mention strict lazy-loading checks in development, form requests and policies, and Horizon dashboards they actually watch.
Vetting
Skills we test before a Laravel developer joins.
01Tested
Eloquent performance
Detects lazy loading with preventLazyLoading, uses chunking or lazy collections for large datasets and adds indexes for real query patterns.
02Tested
Modern PHP
Typed properties, enums, readonly classes, match expressions and static analysis with PHPStan or Larastan.
03Tested
Queue reliability
Sets timeouts, tries and backoff, uses unique jobs and job middleware, and dispatches after database commits.
04Tested
Container and service providers
Understands binding, contextual resolution and how packages register themselves in the service container.
05Tested
Livewire and Inertia trade-offs
Can explain when server-driven components are enough and when a JavaScript page via Inertia fits better.
06Tested
Testing
Pest or PHPUnit feature tests, database refreshing, model factories and fakes for queues, mail and HTTP calls.
Work sample
How the Laravel developer work sample runs.
- 01Step 1
Fix a slow dashboard
The candidate gets a Laravel page with lazy-loaded relationships in a Blade loop, enables strict mode to expose them and fixes the queries.
- 02Step 2
Repair a failing job
A queued export times out and retries forever; they set sensible timeouts and backoff, chunk the work and keep Horizon readable.
- 03Step 3
Build a validated feature
They add a create-and-edit flow with a form request, a policy and Pest feature tests, in Livewire or Inertia. We pay for it.
- 04Step 4
Plan a PHP upgrade
Speaking to someone outside engineering, they set out the route to a newer PHP and Laravel release for the sample app.
Inside the paid Laravel exercise
Candidates work on a small Laravel app with three issues: a dashboard with hidden lazy loading, an export job that times out and loops, and a new feature to build with validation, a policy and tests. The upgrade discussion at the end checks whether they plan ahead rather than patching.
Levels
Laravel Developers: what changes at each level.
01Level 1
Senior
Delivers features through models, jobs and views in your current Laravel app and reviews colleagues’ code.
02Level 2
Lead
Sets architecture inside the app, chooses Livewire or Inertia, defines testing standards and owns deployment.
03Level 3
Laravel platform lead
Plans multi-version upgrades, multi-tenant designs, queue capacity and the move from shared servers to Vapor or containers.
Senior, lead or platform lead
A senior developer is enough when your app is on a supported Laravel release and patterns are settled. A lead helps when the app mixes Livewire, jQuery and Vue with no clear rule, or when deployments are manual. Bring in a platform lead for multi-tenant designs, large queue workloads or a move to Vapor.
Other options
When to hire someone other than a Laravel developer.
01Consider
E-commerce on Magento
If your catalogue and checkout already run on Adobe Commerce, a Magento developer will be productive faster.
Open register02Consider
A content-led website
For a site mainly about pages, posts and editors, a WordPress developer is usually the simpler hire.
Open register03Consider
A Ruby team already in place
If your engineers know Ruby, a Rails developer offers similar conventions without changing language.
Open registerEarly wins for a new Laravel hire
Have the developer ship a small change through your normal deployment in the first week. Then hand over one module with its jobs, policies and tests.
Ask them to run PHPStan or Larastan at a modest level and share the findings. It surfaces risky code before your next PHP upgrade and shows how they prioritise.
FAQ
Questions to resolve before the build.
01Livewire or Inertia: which do your Laravel developers use?
Both. Livewire suits teams who want to stay mostly in PHP and Blade; Inertia suits teams with Vue or React skills who want a single-page feel. We match candidates to your current choice or help a lead decide.
02Can a Laravel developer upgrade our PHP version?
Yes. Upgrades are part of the vetting. The usual path raises PHP and Laravel together in supported steps, uses static analysis to find breaking changes and relies on feature tests to confirm behaviour.
03Do they work with Forge and Vapor?
Many have deployed with both. Forge manages servers you own; Vapor runs Laravel on AWS Lambda. Each has trade-offs around queues, file storage and cold starts that a lead can explain for your app.
Works alongside
Roles a Laravel developer works best alongside.
01Pair with
Vue developers
For Inertia apps where much of the interface is built as Vue pages on top of Laravel routes.
Open register02Pair with
DevOps engineers
For Redis, worker supervision, PHP-FPM tuning and deployment pipelines beyond what Forge provides.
Open register03Pair with
WordPress developers
When a marketing site on WordPress sits beside a Laravel product and the two share users or content.
Open registerProduct delivery
Need the whole product built instead?
Primary sources
References behind this page
Dated official documentation, standards, and research that support the factual claims on this page.
- 01Laravel documentation: Eloquent relationships
Official guide to defining relationships and eager loading in Eloquent.
- 02Laravel documentation: Queues
Official reference for jobs, workers, retries and failed jobs.
How to read this page
Scope, cost and timeline figures are planning guidance until confirmed in a written proposal. Diagrams and screens are illustrations, not client deliverables, and source-code rights and handover follow the signed agreement. See the delivery process and the full disclaimer.
Next decision
Turn the brief into an accepted product scope.
Define outcomes, constraints, evidence, rights and handover before delivery begins.
Commercial rights, repositories, environments, documentation, acceptance and handover remain contract-defined.