Prime Insights – IT staffing of 3 senior PHP developers for a leading American surveying company

Elen Muradian

Faced with rising project demands, Prime Insights, a fast-growing American surveying company, turned to DevsData LLC to scale its backend operations. The request was to deliver three senior PHP developers with the expertise to start delivering value quickly, without requiring extensive onboarding. The collaboration ensured continuity in backend development and reduced pressure on internal recruitment efforts.

Client Profile

Prime Insights is a US-based company specializing in land surveying and utility mapping. Their core offering is an advanced, web-based panel that allows contractors, engineers, and property owners to submit site data and receive detailed underground utility insights before excavation. By streamlining pre-construction workflows and ensuring regulatory compliance, Prime Insights helps reduce costly delays and avoid safety risks tied to underground infrastructure.

The company’s growth is powered by a multidisciplinary team of around 50 professionals, including surveyors, engineers, and software specialists working in close collaboration. This structure allows Prime Insights to continuously improve its platform while maintaining fast turnaround times for clients. A recent 101.08% spike in monthly website traffic reflects the rising demand for efficient, tech-enabled surveying solutions, especially among contractors seeking to digitize traditionally manual processes. As infrastructure projects accelerate nationwide, Prime Insights is scaling its operations to meet growing industry needs.

Challenge: Balancing Technical Depth with Domain Relevance

As Prime Insights expanded its platform capabilities, the need for robust backend infrastructure became increasingly critical. The company sought to bring in three senior PHP developers to work on core system components tied to site data processing, user workflows, and API integrations. Prime Insights required team members who could operate autonomously from the start, understand the nuances of utility mapping logic, and write scalable, production-ready code following proper development workflows, including code reviews and deployment pipelines.

Finding candidates with the right mix of senior-level technical skills and domain adaptability posed a significant challenge. PHP is a mature language, but senior developers with relevant backend architecture experience are not always readily available. The roles also required a high level of autonomy, collaboration with non-technical stakeholders, and an ability to quickly get up to speed on the company’s product logic and internal tools.

Time pressure added further complexity. The internal team at Prime Insights was already stretched across ongoing deployments and platform enhancements, meaning every week without hires directly impacted delivery timelines. The company couldn’t afford a drawn-out hiring cycle, yet lowering the bar on candidate quality wasn’t an option. The challenge was to identify, screen, and onboard three developers who were not just technically strong but also a precise match for the pace, structure, and standards of a growing surveying-tech company.

Goals

Prime Insights aimed to reinforce its backend engineering capabilities by hiring three senior PHP developers who could integrate quickly into ongoing product work. The focus was on strengthening areas tied to API development, data flow optimization, and internal platform scalability. Given the live nature of the platform and its growing user base, the hires needed to be both technically advanced and capable of working independently from the outset.

Position Requirements:

• Strong core PHP expertise
• Experience with Symfony framework
• Proficiency in PostgreSQL
• Familiarity with Docker
• Understanding of CI/CD practices
• Strong communication skills
• Ability to collaborate across technical and operational teams
• Cultural fit with a cross-functional, fast-paced environment
• Capacity to contribute quickly with minimal onboarding

Our Approach

To meet Prime Insights’ goals, we assigned a specialized team of recruiters with strong experience in backend technical roles, particularly in PHP and related stacks. Within the first 48 hours, we launched targeted outreach across Central and Eastern Europe, regions known for producing high-quality engineering talent, with a specific focus on mid-sized markets like Poland and the Czech Republic. The outreach was guided by role-specific search parameters, including Symfony proficiency, experience with containerized environments, and a track record of involvement in long-term projects.

We leaned heavily on our proprietary database of over 65,000 pre-vetted engineers, filtering for candidates who had passed our internal assessments or had worked with us on past client projects. Simultaneously, we leveraged external platforms such as GitHub and Stack Overflow to identify passive candidates with the right technical footprint. Every prospect received a transparent overview of the role, team dynamics, and project roadmap to ensure early-stage clarity and minimize the risk of late-stage dropouts

“A fast-paced, multi-channel recruitment strategy enabled precise candidate matching without compromising technical standards or timeline.” – Nenad H., IT Recruitment Lead

Execution and Delivery

We initiated a two-stage screening process designed to assess both technical depth and soft skill alignment. Candidates first completed an internal behavioral interview with a DevsData LLC recruiter, focusing on communication style, self-management, and ability to work in distributed teams. This was followed by a detailed technical interview with our senior engineering consultants, who evaluated each candidate’s approach to system design, API development, and code clarity through live problem-solving tasks.

This approach was shaped by our experience developing a large-scale, PHP-based platform for Students.pl, a student-oriented career portal built to address challenges in early-career job placement. That project involved advanced PHP frameworks, complex backend logic, and AI-driven features designed to support high user volumes and dynamic content delivery. Working closely with multiple stakeholders and integrating machine learning into a modular architecture gave us deeper insight into scalable PHP development, user-centric functionality, and performance optimization. These lessons directly informed how we refined our recruitment flow for Prime Insights, allowing us to better understand the technical requirements and cultural expectations of PHP-focused roles in a fast-paced, distributed environment.

Once candidates passed both stages, we delivered individual profiles to Prime Insights, including the history of previous projects, tech stack breakdown, English proficiency evaluation, and our internal competency scorecard. The first shortlist of candidates was submitted within four business days of kickoff. Interviews were coordinated closely with the client’s engineering lead, and feedback loops were kept tight to allow rapid iteration on candidate selection.

Our internal team was structured to accelerate delivery without compromising quality: A senior recruiter with FinTech hiring experience led sourcing, supported by a technical interviewer who had previously worked on Symfony-based platforms. Candidate outreach and screening were handled in parallel, leveraging insights from both DevsData LLC’s internal talent database and external sourcing tools. For geographic targeting, we focused on Central and Eastern Europe, a region we’ve repeatedly found to offer a strong pool of Symfony and Docker-experienced engineers, particularly those familiar with scalable, containerized systems. The timezone compatibility and cultural alignment with Prime Insights’ distributed setup made this geography especially strategic.

“In under three weeks, all three roles were filled with developers who had both the technical depth and team-ready soft skills Prime Insights required. Each candidate brought extensive experience in Symfony and PostgreSQL, with a proven ability to work within containerized environments using Docker and manage deployments via GitLab. Their familiarity with microservice architectures enabled a smooth transition into the platform’s existing infrastructure.”

The hires came from backgrounds in SaaS platforms and enterprise web applications, with several having previously contributed to high-traffic systems with complex backend logic. Beyond technical fit, the new hires demonstrated strong communication habits, a high level of autonomy, and experience collaborating across time zones, qualities that were crucial for thriving in Prime Insights’ distributed team structure. The collaboration allowed the client to maintain development velocity without compromising code quality or team cohesion.

Outcome

Within just three weeks, DevsData LLC successfully filled all three senior PHP developer positions for Prime Insights. Each hire came with hands-on experience in Symfony, PostgreSQL, Docker, and modern backend practices, allowing them to contribute to the platform’s core systems with minimal ramp-up time. The new team members were integrated into active development cycles, supporting work on API expansion, performance optimization, and platform scalability.

Throughout the engagement, the recruitment process remained fast-moving and tightly aligned with Prime Insights’ technical expectations. Client-side feedback highlighted strong technical alignment, seamless onboarding, and improved development throughput shortly after the hires joined. The collaboration enabled Prime Insights to meet critical delivery milestones without compromising on code quality or team cohesion.

Highlights:

• 3 senior PHP developers hired and onboarded in under three weeks.
• Candidates matched on Symfony expertise, API work, and backend scalability experience.
• High client satisfaction with onboarding speed, communication, and candidate performance.

In under three weeks, three experienced PHP developers joined the team following a fast-tracked sourcing and vetting process.

What’s Next?

With its internal team now stabilized, Prime Insights is turning its attention toward longer-term roadmap initiatives, including new platform modules and data-driven enhancements. DevsData LLC remains engaged as a recruitment partner and is prepared to support future hiring rounds as technical needs evolve.

Looking ahead, the focus will likely shift toward specialized roles in DevOps, frontend engineering, and data processing, in line with the platform’s growth and increased user activity. The partnership is expected to continue in a flexible, on-demand model, providing Prime Insights with vetted talent exactly when needed, without adding pressure to internal hiring teams.

Looking to scale your backend team with Symfony, Docker, or PostgreSQL talent, fast? Contact DevsData LLC today at general@devsdata.com or head to www.devsdata.com to learn more.

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Elen Muradian Copywriter and Marketer

As a versatile and accomplished writer with 3+ years of experience in digital media publishing, Elen is skilled in crafting engaging content across various subjects, styles, and media. In her previous experience, Elen worked closely with editorial teams and visual artists to bring content to life. She always seeks opportunities for personal and professional growth and is eager to contribute to the writing field.

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