Available for remote & on-site projects
Senior PHP Freelance Developer
10+ years building production PHP systems - clean architecture, Symfony, REST APIs. I work with companies across Europe and the US to ship reliable software fast.
Trusted by companies across Europe
Why hire me?
Fast time-to-value
No onboarding overhead. I am senior-level from day one - reading unfamiliar codebases quickly and delivering production-ready code within the first week.
Clean architecture
I write code that your team can maintain for years: SOLID principles, domain-driven design, proper test coverage, and clear documentation in pull requests.
Legacy modernisation
I have upgraded PHP 5/7 codebases to PHP 8, migrated bare PHP and Zend applications to Symfony, extracted monoliths into APIs, and added test coverage to systems that had none.
Security-first mindset
Payment systems at Atos Worldline and high-traffic platforms at Check24 sharpened a security-first approach I bring to every project.
Full-stack PHP
From REST API design to database schema, from Symfony bundles to CI/CD pipelines - I own the full backend stack and collaborate seamlessly with frontend teams.
European time zone
Based in Frankfurt, Germany. Available for remote work across all European time zones and flexible for US East Coast overlap hours.
Legacy maintenance & modernisation
Most companies don't have the luxury of greenfield projects. They have systems that work - but are expensive to change, risky to deploy, and painful to onboard new developers into. That's where I come in.
PHP version upgrades
From PHP 5.x and 7.x up to modern PHP 8.x - including deprecation fixes, type safety improvements, and making the codebase ready for future upgrades without the same pain.
Framework migrations
Migrated bare PHP and Zend Framework applications to Symfony - incrementally, without big-bang rewrites, keeping the business running throughout the process.
Monolith to API
Extracted tightly-coupled monoliths into clean REST APIs - identifying bounded contexts, defining contracts, and decoupling frontend from backend without breaking existing functionality.
Database modernisation
Redesigned legacy schemas, rewrote raw SQL queries into maintainable query builders, introduced migrations, and improved performance on slow, untamed database layers.
Adding test coverage
Introduced PHPUnit to codebases that had zero tests - starting with the highest-risk areas, writing characterisation tests to safely refactor, and establishing a CI pipeline to keep coverage growing.
Safe, incremental delivery
Legacy work is high-stakes. I work in small, reviewable steps - no surprise rewrites, no broken deploys. Every change is tested, documented, and reversible.
Career highlights
-
2022 – present
Freelance Senior PHP Developer - Ucar Solutions
Delivering high-quality PHP solutions for public authorities in Germany, private companies in Spain and Germany, and international startups. Projects range from greenfield Symfony APIs to legacy modernisation and security audits.- About You / Scayle
- The Quality Group
- ESN
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise
- BMW
- TUI
- Teveo
- ISB Bayern
- DMARCflow
-
2019 – 2021
Senior PHP Backend Developer - Check24
Backend engineering on Germany's largest comparison platform, serving millions of users daily. PHP 7/8, MySQL, microservices, high-availability architecture. -
2017 – 2018
Master's Thesis - Nextcloud GmbH
Built an open-source recommendation engine as part of the Nextcloud ecosystem (PHP, machine learning, NLP). Read the thesis. -
2015 – 2017
Working Student - Backend Developer - Atos Worldline GmbH
Full-stack web projects in the payment and transaction services domain. PHP, MySQL, Oracle SQL, JavaScript.
Technology stack
Core expertise
Tooling & practices
Open source & visibility
A data-structures and algorithms library in PHP. Featured in the JetBrains PHP Annotated Monthly.
An open-source self-hosted password manager built with PHP and Symfony - reflecting a commitment to practical, production-grade open source.
Regular writing on PHP internals, software architecture, algorithms, and freelancing - published at dogan-ucar.de since 2016.
Ready to work together?
I am available for new projects. Drop me an email or call - I usually respond the same day.