PHP Experts in Cologne
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Meet FRATCH Experts in Cologne, who have recently used PHP
Christoph Sawicki
Last position:
Test Manager at Logistics
- Coordination and planning, execution, documentation, and analysis of test cases
- Development of test concepts considering best practices (e.g., test pyramid) with a focus on reliable, automatable test runs
- Implementation and maintenance of test cases according to the test concepts
- Technologies: Citrix Workspace, Shopify, Jira, Xray, MS Teams, MS SharePoint, Confluence, MS Office 365
Hassan Amjad
Last position:
IT Consultant at ALDI South (Albrecht's Discount)
- Supporting the DevOps team in Terraform-managed, multi-region AWS infrastructure to achieve environment parity.
- Developed end-to-end CI/CD pipelines using AWS CodePipeline, CodeBuild, and CodeDeploy, automating the build and deployment.
- Maintained pre- and post-deployment scripts to automate critical tasks such as database schema migrations and environment sanity checks.
- Implemented CI/CD flow specifically for hotfixes via separate Git branches, managing back-merge activities from feature branches to release branches to ensure code integrity through automated conflict resolution.
- Deployed a dedicated, lightweight sanity check application hosted cost-effectively on Azure Container Apps to run automated health and basic functional checks as a post-deployment activity triggered via pipeline.
- Investigated production incidents through code changes and AWS CloudWatch logs.
- Coordinated integration of Dynatrace APM and its APIs for monitoring purposes.
- Full stack QA strategist for a high-traffic e-commerce platform built on a layered architecture for the back-end testing of core platform services, especially the order management system in Zed and Glue layers.
- Managed automation activities, testing process, and refactoring practices.
- Responsible for framework migrations, setup, and training for new automation frameworks.
- Promoted a shift-left approach within the QA team and created the test concept.
- Participated in meetings with IT managers, business owners, product owners, and team members.
Kai Birkenbusch
Last position:
Freelance CPQ Consultant (Full-Time) at Freelance CPQ Consultant
- Independent CPQ consulting for a portfolio of industrial manufacturers, including Scheidt & Bachmann, Trützschler Group SE, and Weiss Klimatechnik GmbH (Schunk Group)
- Full project coverage: requirements analysis, concept, system design, implementation, testing, and international go-live support
- Deep integration work with SAP ECC (material master replication, SD document creation, material creation, general APICONNECT and other web service interfaces)
- Process consulting: analysis and optimization of internal quoting processes for sales and management
- Knowledge transfer/coaching and pair programming to strengthen internal team skills
Alexander Vasiliev
Last position:
Senior DevOps / Platform Engineer at Kaufland e-commerce / real.digital (ex hitmeister.de)
- Evolved the platform from bare-metal infrastructure with a monolithic PHP application to a hybrid Google Cloud architecture with Go microservices on Kubernetes
- Managed and scaled a production infrastructure with 300+ VMs and dozens of clusters, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, RabbitMQ, Redis and Elasticsearch clusters
- Designed architecture, deployment, monitoring, performance analysis, and upgrades for all platform services using Terraform and Ansible
- Migrated observability systems from ELK and Prometheus to Datadog, managed with Terraform
- Introduced Jenkins CI/CD with SonarQube integration and automated tests to speed up feedback cycles
- Containerized the testing environment and implemented GitLab CI pipelines for Docker image builds, static code analysis, and infrastructure tests
- Performed zero-downtime migrations of MySQL and MongoDB clusters to Google Cloud
- Developed reusable Ansible roles for database clusters and automated data obfuscation for staging environments
- Decomposed monolithic databases and migrated to microservice architectures
- Built tools to detect and optimize slow queries in MySQL and MongoDB
- Conducted online schema migrations with pt-online-schema-change without downtime windows
- Developed internal Go applications for batch queries, GitLab-Jira integration, and MongoDB backup recovery
- Technologies: Debian, Ubuntu, Alpine, Go, Bash, Python, PHP, SQL, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Drone CI, MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch, RabbitMQ, Kafka, Docker, Kubernetes, Nomad, Ansible, Terraform, Grafana, ELK, Prometheus, Datadog, Nagios, Zabbix, Nginx, HAProxy, Vault, Helm, SonarQube, Filebeat, Auditbeat, Google Cloud, AWS
Florian Rubel
Last position:
Senior Fullstack Developer at Ivii GmbH
- Two-month modernization of the management UI for AI-powered cameras
- Rewrote a complex React application to Vue 3 with single file components
- Set up the core architecture of the Vue application and configured Vite, Pinia, Router, I18n, ESLint, and Prettier
- Custom integration of Leaflet to display detection zones on images
- Assisted with backend extension and authentication adjustments
Matthias Fitzner
Last position:
Information Security Project Manager at Deutsche Bahn AG
- Introduction of a new Information Security Management System (ISMS) according to ISO/IEC 27001.
- Implementation of the cybersecurity guideline RL CySec-Rail for cross-border rail networks.
Dirk Hesse
Last position:
Owner at Soorce GmbH
- On secondment to REWE digital GmbH
- Agile team coach for a brick-and-mortar retail team
- Coaching, lateral leadership and facilitation
- Establishing agile values and applying agile methods
- Team development and conflict moderation
- Facilitating company-wide strategy workshops
- Technologies: Kanban, Scrum, Microsoft Teams, Liberating Structures, Jira, Confluence, Concept Board, Miro, Test-Driven Development, OOP, DBMS (SQL, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL)
Daniel Langemann
Last position:
Developer / Software Architect at rffl.io
- PHP 8.4
- Platform for sweepstakes: API-first approach with Symfony/API Platform
- API Platform 4.2 (REST, JWT, Doctrine/PostgreSQL, API documentation) plus AWS tools
- Symfony 7.3 for infrastructure, hosting, and subsequent operation on AWS with ECS
- Postgres
- AWS RDS, SQS, Fargate, RDS Postgres database, and AWS SQS message queue
- Managing infrastructure with Terraform
- After successfully implementing Terraform, the GmbH was founded as the next organizational step
Ingo Cousin
Last position:
Founder, freelance CMS expert at CMS Consulting Cousin
- Freelance work as a CMS expert
Cedric Jacob
Last position:
Co-Founder / CTO at Infinite Hooray ApS
- Develop powerful add-ons for customer service systems with innovative Zendesk apps designed to drive business growth, improve efficiency, and enhance customer satisfaction
- Implement full Zendesk solutions and provide hands-on support to bring customer service vision to life
- Combine customer service and technology expertise to address the complexities of delivering top-notch customer service
- Execute Zendesk implementations in 20+ countries and develop AI apps that automate replies
- Maintain a proven track record of success in advancing customer service capabilities
Fatih Karakurt
Last position:
Mobile App Developer at ING Belgium
- Part of a squad focused on intensive module development and integration
- Close collaboration with other squads and teams to integrate modules and essential components
- Use of SwiftUI and the Coordinator pattern to develop clean and understandable code
- Creative collaboration with UX designers in Figma and implementation in code
- Industry: Banking
- Project language: English
- Organizational form: Kanban
- Tools: Azure, Confluence, Figma, Teams
- Team size: 40 people
- Version control: Git, GitFlow, Azure
- App Store product: ING Banking
- Programming languages: SwiftUI, Swift
- Patterns: Coordinator, MVVM
- Swift Package Manager
- Localization: Yes
- Testing: XCTest, XCUITest
Nico Schäfer
Last position:
Quantitative modeling and model development, statistical data analysis, reporting at DB InfraGO / Brockmann & Büchner Partnergesellschaft
- Technical project management, requirements management, and design to guide the data team in developing a predictive maintenance model for DB InfraGO's maintenance planning.
- Statistical modeling and analysis programming with R Studio for fault analysis in preventive maintenance: multivariate modeling using quasi-Poisson, negative binomial, lasso, offset, splines, RandomForest.
- Implementation of various R Shiny dashboards.
- Sparring partner and requirements management for data engineering, data modeling, and ETL pipeline in Tableau Prep.
René Pelzer
Last position:
CIO at clics GmbH
- Software development
- Team management
- Project management
Alexander Stier
Last position:
TYPO3 Senior Fullstack Developer, Backend & Frontend at Vergleich.de Gesellschaft für Verbraucherinformation mbH via HALIAN GmbH
- Typoscript
- Extbase
- Fluid
- Typescript
- requireJS
- WebVital
Alexander Jahn
Last position:
Freelancer at Bayer
- IoT development in Kotlin/Python.
Discover over 15,000 top freelancers
Statistics of experts using PHP
Aggregated from the professional profiles of matched freelancers.
Experience
20 years
Position duration
4 years (Germany: 3.3 years)
Positions per freelancer
10 (Germany: 12)
Top business areas
Information Technology, Product Development, Project Management
Top industries
Information Technology, Retail, Professional Services
Certification focus areas
Information Technology, Project Management, Product Development
Bachelor's degree or higher
80% (Germany: 82%)
Master's degree or higher
60% (Germany: 46%)
Certifications per freelancer
2
Most common languages
German, English, French
Speak two or more languages
100% (Germany: 97%)
Based on our profile pool as of 30 Aug 2026.
Daily rate distribution
The chart shows how the daily rates of freelancers in this technology in Cologne are distributed, based on recent contracts on our platform. Each bar covers a rate range — its height shows how many freelancers charge within that range.
Average rates of experts in Cologne using PHP
Rates are based on recent contracts and do not include FRATCH margin.
The average daily rate is the mean of all daily rates from recent contracts of comparable freelancers on our platform.
The median daily rate is the middle value of all daily rates — half of comparable freelancers charge less, half charge more. Unlike the average, it is barely affected by outliers.
Calculated based on our freelancers’ daily rates as of 30 Aug 2026. Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.
About the technology
What PHP covers
PHP is a server-side language for web applications, APIs, content systems, and commerce sites. It powers custom business logic, login flows, admin tools, and content-heavy portals. Many teams still use it for WordPress, Laravel, Symfony, TYPO3, and Magento work.
Where it fits
- New web applications and internal tools
- API layers and integrations
- WordPress, Magento, and TYPO3 projects
- Modernizing older PHP codebases
PHP is common in companies that need stable backend work and quick changes in the browser-facing layer. In Cologne, it often appears in agency work, retail, media, and enterprise teams that keep large web estates running.
Core ecosystem
A strong specialist knows Composer, autoloading, dependency management, and common testing tools. They work with frameworks such as Laravel and Symfony, handle database access through PDO or ORM layers, and use Git, CI, and logging to keep releases safe.
When freelancers help
Freelance expertise is useful when a team needs to ship a feature fast, untangle legacy code, or add integrations without slowing the main team. It also helps when a project needs a short-term specialist for migration, performance tuning, or a framework upgrade.
What strong specialists do
Good PHP professionals write clear code, test the critical paths, and avoid fragile shortcuts. They understand security basics, session handling, caching, and deployment workflows. They also document decisions so the next handover is simple.
Signs you need help
- The codebase is old and hard to change
- Releases take too long or break often
- Laravel, Symfony, or WordPress work is blocked
- Integrations with payments, CRM, or ERP need care
- The team needs support in Cologne with German and English collaboration
Strong PHP specialists are practical. They focus on the real system, not just the framework name, and can explain trade-offs clearly.
Frequently asked questions
Everything clients usually want to know about PHP, in one place.
PHP is used for server-side web applications, content systems, APIs, and commerce sites. It is a common choice for WordPress, Laravel, Symfony, TYPO3, and Magento work. Teams also use it for dashboards, portals, and integrations with external services.
A strong PHP freelancer helps when delivery is blocked, the codebase is old, or a framework upgrade needs focus. Companies often bring in outside help for migrations, performance work, and short-term feature bursts. It is a good fit when the team needs specialist support without a long hiring cycle.
PHP is often chosen for web-first systems where fast change, broad hosting support, and mature ecosystem packages matter. Compared with JavaScript, it keeps backend code separate from the front end; compared with Python or Java, it is often simpler to deploy for content and commerce sites. The best choice depends on the existing stack and the system shape.
A good PHP specialist usually understands SQL, HTTP, REST APIs, authentication, and version control. Framework knowledge matters too, especially Laravel and Symfony, and many projects also need Composer, caching, and testing tools. For CMS or commerce work, WordPress, TYPO3, or Magento experience can be important.
A small PHP change may only need one focused specialist, while larger platform work needs someone who can handle architecture, code quality, and deployment concerns. Legacy systems often need a person who can read older coding styles without breaking them. The more integrations and business rules you have, the more valuable that depth becomes.
Most PHP work can be done remotely because the core tasks are code, reviews, tests, and coordination. On-site time in Cologne can help during workshops, handovers, or when business and technical teams need close alignment. Many projects use a mixed setup with remote delivery and selected in-person sessions.
Look for clear code, sensible structure, good tests, and realistic trade-offs in the first PHP deliverables. A strong specialist explains why a framework choice, data model, or caching strategy fits the system. You should also see careful handling of security, errors, and deployment.
Yes, PHP can be a strong choice for new systems when the team wants mature tooling, fast web delivery, and a large ecosystem. It is especially common for content-heavy products, admin areas, and commerce features. The key is to pair it with modern practices, not old habits.
The average hourly rate of freelancers in Cologne, Germany who have used PHP in their recent projects is 97 €, which corresponds to a daily rate of about 779 € based on an 8-hour working day.
Of the freelancers in Cologne, Germany who have used PHP in their recent projects, 80% hold at least a Bachelor's degree and 60% hold at least a Master's degree.
On average, freelancers in Cologne, Germany who have used PHP in their recent projects have 20 years of professional experience, with a single engagement typically lasting around 4 years.
The most common languages among freelancers in Cologne, Germany who have used PHP in their recent projects are German (100%), English (100%), and French (24%).
The most common industries among freelancers in Cologne, Germany who have used PHP in their recent projects are Information Technology (100%), Retail (47%), and Professional Services (41%).
The most common business areas among freelancers in Cologne, Germany who have used PHP in their recent projects are Information Technology (100%), Product Development (76%), and Project Management (47%).
Main locations of FRATCH Experts, who have recently used PHP
Our freelancers and interim experts are at home across the DACH region — available on-site in the major business hubs or fully remote. Choose a location to discover matched specialists, local market insights and up-to-date availability.
Berlin 
Hamburg 
Munich 
Frankfurt 
Stuttgart 
Dusseldorf 
Leipzig 
Dortmund 
Essen 
Nuremberg Request a free demo
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Philipp Thomaschewski
FRATCH CEO
