Working with databases doesn’t have to be painful. Doctrine lets you think in objects while it handles the messy SQL details behind the scenes.
In this track, we’ll start from the basics — entities, repositories, and migrations — and work our way up to relationships, performance tuning, and advanced ORM features. Along the way, you’ll learn why Doctrine works the way it does, not just which methods to call.
The result? Cleaner code, fewer surprises, and a database layer you actually enjoy working with.
Working with databases doesn’t have to be painful. Doctrine lets you think in objects while it handles the messy SQL details behind the scenes.
In this track, we’ll start from the basics — entities, repositories, and migrations — and work our way up to relationships, performance tuning, and advanced ORM features. Along the way, you’ll learn why Doctrine works the way it does, not just which methods to call.
The result? Cleaner code, fewer surprises, and a database layer you actually enjoy working with.
Prerequisites
- Intermediate PHP experience & skills
- Comfortable with object-oriented principles
After this track, what will my level be?
- Confidently use Doctrine ORM in real Symfony applications
- Design clean, expressive entities that reflect your domain
- Work comfortably with relationships (OneToMany, ManyToMany, etc.)
- Write efficient queries using the QueryBuilder and DQL
- Manage database schema changes with migrations
- Understand what Doctrine is doing under the hood — and why
- Avoid common performance and modeling pitfalls
- Know when to use (or skip) Doctrine features like lazy loading, cascades, and fetch strategies