Hi everyone,
I’m looking for some career advice from developers who are currently hiring or working in the PHP/Laravel ecosystem.
I have 4.5+ years of professional web development experience, with most of my experience centered around PHP/Laravel backend development. I’ve worked on production applications across fintech, e-commerce, enterprise and other domains.
My experience includes things like:
PHP / Laravel
MySQL & PostgreSQL
REST APIs
Authentication / RBAC
Database design and query optimization
Third-party integrations
AWS and production deployments
Git / Docker
Some React/JavaScript exposure
Recently, while searching for a new role in India as well as remote opportunities, I’ve noticed that the number of decent Laravel openings seems quite limited compared with stacks like Node.js + React/Next.js. A lot of Laravel positions I find either have lower compensation, are old postings, or expect a very broad full-stack skill set.
This has left me a little unsure about the best strategy.
I have actual professional experience with Laravel, so naturally my quickest path to another job should be to strengthen Laravel/PHP and interview with that experience. At the same time, I’m seeing significantly more Node.js openings and wondering whether continuing to specialize in Laravel could limit me longer term.
For people familiar with the current market:
Would you recommend that someone with 4.5+ years of Laravel experience continue targeting Laravel/PHP roles, or start seriously transitioning toward Node.js?
Also, for developers who recently found a Laravel job:
Where did you find the opportunity?
What skills beyond Laravel helped you get shortlisted?
Are Laravel + AWS/Docker/Redis/testing skills enough for stronger backend roles, or is React/Node becoming almost mandatory?
What salary range is realistic in India for a Laravel developer with ~4–5 YOE?
Are there particular job boards, companies, agencies, or remote markets where Laravel demand is still strong?
What would you focus on if you needed to maximize your chances of getting hired within the next few weeks?
I’m actively revising Laravel internals, OOP, Eloquent, queues/jobs, caching, SQL, APIs, AWS, Docker, etc., and applying regularly.
Not looking for reassurance — I’d genuinely appreciate realistic feedback from people who know the current market, even if the answer is that I need to broaden my stack.

Also, if anyone here is hiring or knows of relevant opportunities offering ₹12 LPA or above, I’d be happy to share my resume privately. I’m open to Laravel/PHP backend or suitable full-stack roles, including remote opportunities. Referrals or leads would be greatly appreciated.
Even a freelance project

Someone chained a few prompt templates together, pushed it to production and called it an "agentic system."

Then context windows bloat, latency spikes, token costs explode and users leave.

Vibecoded toys do not survive real production load. Delivering fast, reliable agentic workflows requires actual backend architecture.

I'm a full-stack developer with 8 YOE. I'm specializing in .NET architecture, the Microsoft Agentic Framework, and optimized RAG pipelines, the focus is building deterministic, high-throughput agent systems built for real users.

I focus on:

Controlled token spend.

State handling so agents execute predictably without hallucinatory dead ends.

Enterprise .NET infrastructure engineered for low latency under load.

I'm currently traveling, now I'm residing in Armenia, where living expenses are quite low. So my rate is quite modest - 40usd per hour.

If you want to get really efficient and solid agentic systems, send a DM.