[akhmatova]

From what you said about his current skill set:

He should try to learn at least one mainstream full-scale programming language (Python would probably be the best bet). My guess is that he would be better off doing data or workflow oriented stuff than webby stuff (given how insane and trendy and for want of a better term, "skinny-pants" frontend technology has become these days. In any case ever churning and always chasing the latest shiny).

He should also try to "ping" as many modern tools as he can (docker, npm, CI/CD, etc) even if they aren't part of his preferred toolchain. And be sure he knows how to put together a simple hand-coded website + REST API together from scratch, or something close to it. ust to show he's flexible and unafraid and to destroy the idea that he's trapped in some kind of 1982 mindset.

There are a lot of places (particularly in government, social services, etc) that just need someone to do their CRUD stuff and not complain that they aren't pulling down a FAANG salary or a getting fancy title to brag about or the enjoying the luxury of being able to use latest shiny every day.

He just need to keep looking, and be persistent.

[gprs]

Learning Python would be the best and easiest way to go. Could go into data science visulaization jobs or go into backend api's using Flask