[keiferski]

I would look into WordPress. It’s still the most popular way to build websites.

- there is a huge ecosystem of themes and plugins that need development and maintenance

- it’s not “cool” so you have far less hype and trends

- the basic tech stack changes pretty slowly and you mostly don’t need to learn “hipster frameworks”

[Nextgrid]

I disagree.

The Wordpress field is saturated which means making a living wage is difficult. Even if you hit the lottery and release a popular paid plugin, it won't be sustainable in the long run.

Furthermore, Wordpress is unlikely to teach you modern development practices and even if you learn them by yourself you'll be hamstrung by the near-impossibility to apply them to that field.

PHP is fine (it's actually quite pleasant with modern frameworks), Wordpress is not.

[keiferski]

I didn’t mean to make your own plugin, but to work as a developer for an already-existing company. There are thousands of small WordPress firms that have 5-10 employees and they always seem to be hiring.

[Nextgrid]

> they always seem to be hiring

Which probably means either 1) they're not paying enough or 2) there aren't any qualified candidates around - and as for why that is, see 1).

[keiferski]

As I said, WordPress is a huge economy and there are many jobs because it’s not “cool”, the tech isn’t super exciting, and yes, the pay is definitely lower than top companies. But that also means the workload is usually lighter and it’s easier to get a job, which is what the OP was looking for.