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Top 19 Yii Developers Available

yii developers 1 - Top 19 Yii Developers Available

Yii has powered high-performance PHP applications for over a decade—and much of that success is due to the passionate, skilled developers behind it.

This global list celebrates those who have shaped Yii 2 and Yii 3 through open-source contributions, startup leadership (while still coding), extension development, in-depth tutorials, and active community mentorship. From framework architects and core maintainers to prolific toolmakers and regional advocates, these individuals represent the very best of Yii’s worldwide ecosystem. Below is our curated and ranked list of the top Yii developers making a lasting impact today:

  1. Dmitry Naumenko
  2. Qiang Xue
  3. Antonio Ramirez
  4. Carsten Brandt
  5. Wilmer Arambula
  6. Stefano Mtangoo
  7. Jeff Reifman
  8. Andrii Vasyliev
  9. Mehdi Achour
  10. Albert Borsos
  11. Kartik Visweswaran
  12. Tobias Munk
  13. Sjaak Priester
  14. Rodrigo Coelho
  15. Nico Susanto
  16. Fabrizio Caldarelli
  17. Larry Ullman
  18. Victor Gonzalez
  19. Sandeep Reddy Guntaka

Now, let’s delve deeper into their backgrounds and achievements.

Dmitry Naumenko

YouTube Video

Nationality: Ukrainian

Dmitry Naumenko (known by his handle SilverFire) is a Yii core framework developer who has significantly shaped Yii 2 and Yii 3. Joining the core team in 2015, Dmitry quickly became a key contributor and eventually one of the lead maintainers of Yii 2.

He has worked on everything from the Active Record ORM to performance tuning and security fixes. Dmitry is also a co-founder of the HiQDev development team, which means he uses Yii daily in real-world projects. In Yii 3, he has collaborated closely with other core members to refactor the framework’s architecture into modern, decoupled packages. Known for his thorough code reviews and detailed forum explanations, Dmitry has helped countless Yii developers understand complex concepts. His blend of hands-on coding and community support earns him a spot among the top Yii developers.

Qiang Xue

Nationality: Chinese

Qiang Xue is the original creator and architect of the Yii framework. He launched Yii in 2008 (building on his experience with the PRADO framework) and led development through Yii 1.x and the initial Yii 2.0 release.

Under Qiang’s guidance, Yii became one of the first high-performance MVC frameworks in PHP, emphasizing clean design and efficiency. He is credited with many core concepts that define Yii today. After stepping back from the project in 2015, Qiang continued to excel in the tech industry – he is now an engineering leader at Amazon Web Services. With over two decades of experience, including a Ph.D. in computer science, Qiang’s blend of academic insight and practical skill laid the foundation for Yii’s success. His legacy lives on in Yii 2 and Yii 3, as the framework’s philosophy still reflects the pragmatism and performance focus he instilled.

Antonio Ramirez

Yii has always been my go-to framework. It’s fast, elegant, and doesn’t get in your way.

Nationality: Mexican

Antonio Ramirez Cobos is a Yii veteran and entrepreneur who has significantly influenced the Yii ecosystem since the early days. He co-founded 2amigos, a consulting company known for Yii expertise, and served as its CTO.

Antonio was an official Yii core contributor in the Yii 1.x era and continued to shape Yii 2.0 by creating a vast array of extensions and tools. In fact, he is credited with authoring over 40 Yii extensions ranging from widgets to full modules. Many Yii developers have used his packages – such as the 2amigos Yii2-Usuario user management module – to jump-start their projects. Antonio is also an influential blogger and tutorial writer; he has written countless how-to articles and even a chapter in the early Yii books. His open-source ethos (“Open Source believer and innovator” as he describes himself) and leadership at 2amigos have helped spread Yii’s adoption globally.

Carsten Brandt

Carsten Brandt - Top 19 Yii Developers Available

Nationality: German

Carsten Brandt is a long-time Yii core developer renowned for his deep technical contributions. He joined the Yii team in 2012 and was instrumental throughout Yii 2’s development.

Carsten is the author of the framework’s lightning-fast Markdown parser and has optimized many core components for speed and reliability. He also maintained critical features like the Yii debugger and console tools, and even helped oversee the official Yii Docker images for deployment. With a master’s degree in Informatik, Carsten offers Yii training and consulting, sharing over a decade of expertise in building Yii applications. His strong background in open source as a Yii core team member and consistent quality of code have made him one of the most respected Yii developers in the community.

Wilmer Arambula

Nationality: Venezuelan

Wilmer Arambula is a Yii core team developer known for his work on modernizing the framework’s frontend integration and tooling. Hailing from Venezuela (and active in the Latin American PHP community), Wilmer joined the Yii core team around 2019 to contribute to Yii 3.0 development.

He has been instrumental in porting and improving Yii’s database abstraction layer for Yii 3 – a massive effort to refactor and enhance how Yii interacts with databases. Wilmer also created the Yii 3 Bulma UI integration, making it easier for developers to use the Bulma CSS framework with Yii. He is an avid open-source enthusiast, evident from his frequent posts on Twitter/X discussing Yii updates and tips. In the community, Wilmer is admired for his helpfulness; he often writes on Dev.to and other platforms to explain Yii 3 concepts in a beginner-friendly way.

Stefano Mtangoo

Nationality: Tanzanian

Stefano Mtangoo is a Tanzanian software developer and entrepreneur who has emerged as a passionate advocate and influencer for Yii. Active in the community under the username “evstevemd,” Stefano has been contributing to Yii’s ecosystem through forum discussions, tutorials, and open-source packages for over a decade.

He is the founder of a tech company in Tanzania and often chooses Yii for its reliability and performance. Stefano has written articles on topics like effective Yii querying and using the framework in unconventional environments. On social media, he actively promotes Yii – famously encouraging developers to “dump Laravel, get into Yii bandwagon. Simply powerful”.

In 2024, he has continued this evangelism, sharing the latest Yii news and updates to keep the local community engaged. Mtangoo also contributes code: he has helped with translations and minor fixes, and created a Yii 2 extension for SMS integration in Africa.

Jeff Reifman

Jeff Reifman - Top 19 Yii Developers Available

Nationality: American

Jeff Reifman is an American technologist and entrepreneur who became a prominent Yii influencer through his writing and startup projects. A former Microsoft Group Program Manager turned independent consultant, Jeff founded MeetingPlanner.io – a startup built with Yii – and authored a highly regarded Envato Tuts+ tutorial series on building startups with Yii.

Reifman credits Yii for rekindling his passion for programming, citing how Yii “made it possible to quickly and easily build secure, database-driven web services”. Over the past year, he has continued blogging and creating educational content about Yii and PHP, and he often speaks at tech events about Yii’s strengths. Jeff’s background includes activism and journalism, and he leverages that visibility to advocate for Yii in the PHP community.

As a result, he’s introduced many new developers to Yii via his tutorials and has influenced framework adoption decisions. His broad experience and public profile have made him an unofficial ambassador for Yii in the wider tech world.

Andrii Vasyliev

I use Yii every day in production. That’s why I care so much—it’s not theory, it’s practice.

Nationality: Ukrainian

Andrii Vasyliev is the primary architect of Yii 3.0 and a core team member guiding the framework’s future. Based in Kyiv, Ukraine, Andrii joined the Yii team in 2018 specifically to spearhead the Yii 3 overhaul.

He brought with him a wealth of experience from running his own projects at HiQDev and immediately focused on restructuring Yii’s architecture into many smaller packages. This modular approach, championed by Andrii, allows more frequent independent releases and a more robust core. He has contributed code across the new Yii 3 repositories – from the DI container to the new routing system – all while coordinating contributors globally. Andrii’s leadership and daily use of Yii in production give him practical insight into what the framework needs. His vision and hard work have been critical in evolving Yii for modern PHP development.

Mehdi Achour

Nationality: Tunisian

Mehdi Achour (GitHub: machour) is a Yii core team member who has been instrumental in Yii 3’s development. A longtime Yii user since 2012, Mehdi officially joined the core team in 2019 to give back to the framework he had been using for years.

Hailing from Tunisia, Mehdi brings a fresh perspective and international diversity to the team. He has contributed to Yii 2 maintenance and is heavily involved in coding Yii 3’s new features – for instance, he helped develop the new notifications infrastructure for Yii. Mehdi is known for his enthusiastic community involvement: he has written guides, answered questions on forums, and even created content to help others learn Yii. His passion for Yii is evident – he stated that he wants to give back to the project as much as it gave him. With solid PHP skills and a community-oriented mindset, Mehdi Achour is a rising star among Yii developers.

Albert Borsos

Albert Borsos - Top 19 Yii Developers Available

Nationality: Hungarian

Albert Borsos is a Hungarian software engineer and open-source contributor known for bringing Domain-Driven Design principles to Yii 2 development. Albert created the yii2-ddd library, which provides a framework for structuring Yii 2 applications with DDD patterns.

Over the past year, he has continued to maintain and refine this and other Yii-related packages, demonstrating a commitment to advanced engineering practices in Yii projects. Borsos is also active in the Yii 3 community discussions, providing insights on how to design the new framework for enterprise-grade applications. His contributions in 2023 were highlighted in Yii news for assisting with core enhancements and community tools.

In addition, Albert occasionally writes technical articles explaining complex Yii topics like repositories, service layers, and testing methodology. By introducing enterprise patterns and robust workflows, he’s had a significant community impact, bridging the gap between Yii and high-level software architecture.

Kartik Visweswaran

Nationality: Indian

Kartik Visweswaran is one of the most prolific Yii extension developers in the world. Based in India, Kartik has contributed an astonishing number of Yii 2 packages – over 50 extensions covering form inputs, grids, file uploaders, widgets, and more.

His popular suite of extensions (often prefixed with “yii2-” and collectively known under the Krajee brand) has become the de facto standard for many Yii 2 projects. For example, the Kartik Yii2 GridView and FileInput widgets are widely used for their rich features. Kartik is also an active educator: he maintains an extensive technical blog and “web tips” series on his site to help developers use his tools effectively. His open-source contributions exemplify quality and reliability – many of his repos have hundreds of stars and are updated promptly with new Yii releases.

Tobias Munk

Nationality: German

Tobias Munk (GitHub: schmunk42) is a Yii core contributor and tool-maker known for expanding what developers can do with Yii. Operating from Germany, Tobias co-founded the web agency Diemeisterei and has built numerous Yii-powered projects since the framework’s early days.

He created Phundament, one of the first open-source CMS platforms on top of Yii, demonstrating how Yii could be used for complex applications. Tobias is perhaps best known for developing the Giiant code generator, an enhanced version of Yii’s Gii that can produce sophisticated CRUD code – essentially “Gii on steroids” as he calls it. He has published several Yii extensions (over 10 listed on yiiframework.com) and contributed to official Yii packages like the Docker images. Tobias also actively wrote about Yii best practices, including an early guide on using Composer with Yii that many developers found invaluable.

Sjaak Priester

Nationality: Dutch

Sjaak Priester is a Dutch software developer who has made an outsized impact on Yii through his prolific extension development. An experienced programmer (and former journalist) based in Amsterdam, Sjaak embraced Yii and quickly became one of its top independent contributors.

He has authored dozens of Yii 2 extensions – in fact, he is ranked the #1 extension developer on the official Yii site with 27 extensions to his name. His libraries fill critical needs, from the yii2-taggable and yii2-sortable-behavior for handling complex data relations to integrations like yii2-gcharts for Google Charts. Sjaak’s code is known for being straightforward and well-documented, reflecting his clarity of thought. He also maintains a personal website sharing software tips and has been active in forums helping others.

Rodrigo Coelho

Rodrigo Coelho - Top 19 Yii Developers Available

Nationality: Brazilian

Rodrigo Coelho, known by his username robregonm, is a Yii developer celebrated for his many community extensions and educational contributions. Active since the Yii 1.x days, Rodrigo has developed at least 11 extensions for Yii – placing him among the top extension authors on Yii’s official rankings.

Notably, he created an early user authentication and RBAC module for Yii 2 (often used as a basis for managing users/roles), as well as a PDF generation formatter that integrates mPDF into Yii applications. These tools filled important gaps for developers and were widely adopted. Rodrigo also shared his knowledge through wiki articles in both English and Spanish, helping to internationalize Yii’s learning resources. With a professional background likely in Latin America, he has helped bridge the Spanish-speaking Yii community with the broader project.

Nico Susanto

Nationality: Indonesian

Nico Susanto is an Indonesian programmer who has played a key role in Yii’s community in Southeast Asia. As a developer at the Indonesian Ministry of Transportation and a freelancer, Nico has utilized Yii in government and enterprise projects, demonstrating the framework’s capability at scale.

He is a leader of the Yii Indonesia community – organizing meetups and writing tutorials in Bahasa Indonesia to help local developers adopt Yii. Nico contributed an Indonesian translation of the Yii guide and has answered many questions on the Yii Indonesia Facebook group. In code contributions, Susanto has created a few Yii extensions on GitHub and has submitted bug fixes to Yii 2 core. His recent activity includes speaking in online webinars about Yii’s future and championing Yii 3 adoption in Indonesia. Through his advocacy and localized support, Nico has significantly grown Yii’s user base in his region and earned recognition as one of Yii’s global top developers.

Fabrizio Caldarelli

Nationality: Italian

Fabrizio Caldarelli is an Italian Yii developer and author who has helped many developers learn Yii through his writing and code. He is the author of the book “Yii2 By Example” (Packt, 2015), which walks readers through building practical applications with Yii 2. This book, geared toward both beginners and intermediate users, showcases Fabrizio’s ability to explain concepts clearly and provide hands-on tips for real-world scenarios.

As a software engineer in Rome, Fabrizio has also contributed extensions under the namespace “sfmobile” (such as a file upload module), demonstrating his coding expertise with Yii. He has been a member of the yiisoft organization on GitHub, indicating direct involvement with Yii projects. In the Yii 3 timeframe, Fabrizio has participated in community discussions and contributed to code reviews, lending his experience to the framework’s evolution. His unique contribution, however, remains the educational content he created – Yii2 By Example has a solid 4-star rating and is often recommended alongside the official documentation.

Larry Ullman

Larry Ullman - Top 19 Yii Developers Available

Nationality: American

Larry Ullman is a renowned technical writer and developer who greatly accelerated Yii’s adoption through his comprehensive books and tutorials. An accomplished author of numerous programming books, Larry turned his attention to Yii and wrote “The Yii Book”, a definitive guide to Yii framework development.

The first edition (covering Yii 1.1) and the second edition (covering Yii 2.0) of this book have been invaluable resources for developers worldwide. Published in a self-published format and later made open-source, The Yii Book spans everything from basic MVC concepts to advanced topics like custom extension development. Larry’s writing is praised for its clarity and thoroughness, and he dedicated the book to the Yii team and community, reflecting his engagement with the project.

In addition to the book, Larry maintained an active blog where he posted Yii tutorials and answered reader questions, effectively becoming an ambassador for Yii in the broader PHP community.

Victor Gonzalez

Nationality: Spanish

Victor Gonzalez is a Spanish software engineer and a prominent Yii developer, best known for creating and maintaining the Yii 2 Starter Kit project. Based in Barcelona, Victor has contributed to making Yii more accessible by providing a robust application template (yii2-starter-kit) that integrates user management, RBAC, and other common features out-of-the-box.

He has also developed the Sitemaped extension for Yii, a sitemap generation library that is used in many Yii sites. In 2023, Gonzalez has kept these projects up to date and compatible with the latest Yii 2.0. He’s also participated in discussions around what a Yii 3 starter template should look like, leveraging his experience. At his day job, Victor uses Yii for building scalable systems, and he often shares performance optimization tips with the community. His impact is notable in that many newcomers start their Yii journey with his starter kit, benefiting from his work even if they don’t know it.

Sandeep Reddy Guntaka

Nationality: Indian

Sandeep Reddy Guntaka is a software architect and CTO who has emerged as a valuable contributor to Yii’s development. With over a decade of industry experience, Sandeep has been contributing to Yii 3 code and discussions in the past year.

He helped implement enhancements in Yii 3’s core packages – for example, refining the AR layer and improving test coverage in the framework’s repository. Sandeep’s strong background in scalable system design has influenced some of Yii 3’s approaches to caching and queue handling, where he has provided input.

In 2023, his name appeared in Yii’s community updates as one of the new contributors stepping up to move Yii 3 forward. His blend of corporate experience and hands-on coding keeps the Yii project grounded in real-world needs. Sandeep’s mentorship of his team using Yii has indirectly introduced more developers to the framework, extending his community impact beyond direct contributions.

Wrap Up

These legends represent exceptional talent, making them extremely challenging to headhunt. However, there are thousands of other highly skilled IT professionals available to hire with our help. Contact us, and we will be happy to discuss your hiring needs.

Note: We’ve dedicated significant time and effort to creating and verifying this curated list of top talent. However, if you believe a correction or addition is needed, feel free to reach out. We’ll gladly review and update the page.

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