I think you were ahead of the curve. I have seen multiple companies that seem to think of front-end as "lesser" engineering, but then struggled to fill front-end roles more than any other position, and struggle to build great UIs. "Front-end" still has a stigma of taking a PSD and turning it into HTML/CSS, even though these days front-ends are getting extremely sophisticated and require tons of strong coding skills. Ultimately supply/demand work in your favor. And I wouldn't take anything a PHP expert has to say about "serious" developer roles too seriously.
The full quote is "The second thing, if I see Photoshop on a developer ad, that’s a red flag immediately. What it tells me is you don’t understand what you want, so you’re just throwing everything out there. I advise developers, anytime they’re looking at job ads, serious developer positions, not front end developers, but mid range and back end developers, if they see Photoshop on it, walk away." He's not saying "front-end developers are not serious developer positions"; he's saying "if you see Photoshop on a job ad — and it's not for a front-end position — that's a red flag".
Yeah, I bristled at his phrasing, until I read the rest of the sentence--then I was in full agreement. As a front end developer, I'm tired of seeing kitchen sink job postings "requiring" Sass, AngularJS, and...Hibernate. Or WebSphere.
I do apologize for the unfortunate wording on that comment.
It really was not my intent to imply that only back-end developers are serious developers. I'm going to chalk that one up to the fact that this was a live interview and sometimes things just fall out of my mouth before I can shut it. I do apologize and ask that any front end developer, designer, or any developer proficient with photoshop to please accept my apology. :)
I was trying to say that if a company is advertising for a developer, seeing photoshop on the ad is a red-flag. I have known a few developers who can also design but only a few.
In my experience, when you start seeing disconnects like this is it because the company hasn't put a lot of thought into exactly what they want the developer to do. That is bad for them, it is worse for whomever they hire.
I am married to a wonderful designer and would never ever disparage designers. :)
Seeing a lot of knee-jerk reactions to that, and I agree it's poorly worded. But slow down and read what he's actually saying there - he is not saying front end devs aren't serious developers.