My suggestion would be to have a step after starting bitcoind that tries to do a 'getinfo' from bitcoind
Not sure if that would need to be independent code from bitcoind to avoid start issues running multiple bitcoind's
(e.g. a tiny php script that uses curl)
Thus, until bitcoind is actually listening, there's no point going to the next step anyway, and that can sometimes take a while
(or longer if the bitcoind has been off for a while)
The other issue is that until it has caught up to the current block, any work you do is wasted ... I'm not sure if getinfo delays until that ... or how to tell it has reached the current network block.