This guide gives you a concrete, code-level checklist to evaluate any Laravel developer or Laravel development service before you sign a contract. You don't need to be a programmer to use it. Every check below comes with a sample answer and working code, so you know exactly what "good" looks like.
Why hiring a Laravel developer is a technical decision
Laravel is a mature, opinionated PHP framework. That opinionation is its superpower: it ships with blessed solutions for routing, validation, authentication, queues, caching, and testing. A strong Laravel developer leans on those solutions. A weak one reinvents them — badly.
When you hire a Laravel developer, you are not really buying hours of typing. You are buying judgment about which of Laravel's built-in tools to use and where the sharp edges are. The interview questions below are designed to surface that judgment quickly.
Check 1: Ask how they would structure a REST API
Most business projects need an API — for a mobile app, a Vue or React frontend, or third-party integrations. Ask the candidate: "Walk me through how you'd build a REST API for products with listing, creation, and updates."
A good answer mentions API resource routes, API Resources for consistent JSON output, and versioning from day one. Something like this is what you want to hear:
// routes/api.php
Route::prefix('v1')->group(function () {
Route::apiResource('products', ProductController::class);
});
// ProductResource keeps the JSON shape stable
class ProductResource extends JsonResource
{
public function toArray(Request $request): array
{
return [
'id' => $this->id,
'name' => $this->name,
'price' => (float) $this->price,
'created_at' => $this->created_at->toIso8601String(),
];
}
}
Why it matters: API Resources decouple your database schema from your API contract. Without them, every database change breaks your mobile app. If the candidate says "just return the model as JSON," that's a red flag — it leaks internal fields like password hashes and timestamps you never intended to expose.
Check 2: Ask about API authentication
Ask: "How would you secure this API?" The correct modern answer for most projects is Laravel Sanctum — lightweight token authentication built into Laravel:
// Issue a token on login
$token = $user->createToken('api-token')->plainTextToken;
// Protect routes
Route::middleware('auth:sanctum')->group(function () {
Route::apiResource('products', ProductController::class);
});
// Revoke on logout
$request->user()->currentAccessToken()->delete();
Why it matters: A developer who reaches for a hand-rolled token system, or who stores JWT secrets in the codebase, is introducing security debt you will pay for later. Sanctum handles token hashing, abilities, and revocation out of the box. Bonus points if they mention rate limiting on the login endpoint to block brute-force attacks:
PHP
Route::middleware('throttle:10,1')->post('/login', [AuthController::class, 'login']);Check 3: The N+1 question — the classic tell
Ask: "Your product listing page loads fine with 50 products but takes 8 seconds with 5,000. What do you check first?" A senior Laravel developer will immediately say N+1 queries — the most common Laravel performance bug in existence.
The broken version looks innocent:
// BAD: one query for products, then one query PER product for its category
$products = Product::all();
foreach ($products as $product) {
echo $product->category->name; // +1 query each loop
}
The fix is one word — eager loading:
// GOOD: two queries total, no matter how many products
$products = Product::with('category')->paginate(20);
Why it matters: If a candidate cannot explain N+1 and eager loading, they have never debugged a real production performance problem. This single concept separates developers whose apps scale from developers whose apps fall over at 10,000 rows.
Check 4: Ask where slow work goes
Ask: "A user places an order and we need to send three emails, generate a PDF invoice, and sync with the CRM. Where does that code run?"
The right answer: not in the HTTP request. Slow work goes into queued jobs so the user gets an instant response:
// Controller stays fast
ProcessOrder::dispatch($order);
return response()->json(['message' => 'Order received'], 202);
// The heavy lifting runs in the background
class ProcessOrder implements ShouldQueue
{
public function handle(): void
{
Mail::to($this->order->user)->send(new OrderConfirmation($this->order));
InvoiceService::generate($this->order);
CrmService::sync($this->order);
}
}
Why it matters: Developers who do everything synchronously build apps where checkout takes 12 seconds and timeouts multiply under load. Queues are a core Laravel feature — a Laravel API developer who doesn't reach for them is fighting the framework.
Check 5: Ask about validation and error handling
Ask: "How do you validate incoming data and handle errors?" You want to hear Form Request classes and consistent JSON error responses — never raw request data passed straight into the database:
class StoreProductRequest extends FormRequest
{
public function rules(): array
{
return [
'name' => 'required|string|max:255',
'price' => 'required|numeric|min:0',
'sku' => 'required|string|unique:products,sku',
];
}
}
Common pitfall to watch for: candidates who skip the `unique` rule and handle duplicates with try/catch, or who return HTML error pages from API routes. Both signal a developer who hasn't shipped a real API consumed by a frontend team.
Check 6: Ask about testing
Ask: "How do you know your code works before it reaches production?" The minimum acceptable answer: feature tests for the API endpoints using Laravel's built-in testing tools:
public function test_can_create_product(): void
{
$user = User::factory()->create();
$response = $this->actingAs($user)->postJson('/api/v1/products', [
'name' => 'Test Widget',
'price' => 29.99,
'sku' => 'WIDGET-001',
]);
$response->assertCreated();
$this->assertDatabaseHas('products', ['sku' => 'WIDGET-001']);
}
Why it matters: Untested Laravel codebases become "don't touch it" codebases within months. Every change risks breaking something invisible. A developer who writes tests is a developer you can safely hire again for phase two.
Red flags: when to walk away
Beyond the technical checks, watch for these engagement-level red flags when you hire a Laravel developer:
- No questions about your business logic. If they quote a price before understanding what the app must do, they will build the wrong thing efficiently.
- "I don't need Laravel's built-in auth, I'll write my own." Rebuilding solved problems is how security holes are born.
- Business logic buried in controllers. Ask to see a sample controller. If it's 300 lines of if-statements with database queries inline, expect a maintenance nightmare.
- No mention of git, environments, or deployment. Professional Laravel development means version control, staging environments, and documented deployment — not FTP uploads.
- Can't explain a past production bug. Every senior developer has a war story about a 3 AM outage. A candidate with none hasn't operated real software.
What a healthy engagement looks like
Once you've found the right person, structure the work so it stays healthy:
1. Start with a technical spec — endpoints, data model, and acceptance criteria written down before code starts.
2. Milestone-based payments tied to working, tested features — never 100% upfront.
3. Code in your repository from day one, with pull requests you (or a reviewer) can see.
4. A handover document at the end: how to deploy, where secrets live, how to run the test suite.
A developer who resists any of these is telling you how the engagement will go.
Final thought
Learning how to hire a Laravel developer is really about learning what good Laravel work looks like: resourceful routing, API Resources, Sanctum tokens, eager loading, queued jobs, request validation, and tests. A candidate fluent in these fundamentals will build you software that survives contact with real users and real data. One who isn't will build you a demo that expires on launch day.
If you'd rather skip the vetting process entirely, work with a developer (https://webixyhub.com) who already holds herself to this checklist — custom Laravel development, secure REST APIs, and integrations built to last.