I finished a Javascript bootcamp but got offered a PHP job. Should I accept it?

Кејтеновиот син ♦ — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 14:37:22 +0000

Hi everyone,

I am a 26 y/o college dropout from the balkans, currently employed as a 'marketing executive'.(more on this further down).

Ever since I was a kid I've always wanted to have a career in IT/CS.I went in a CS college and slacked off for 6 years due to being afraid of the challenge and also being lazy combined with some personal family issues. I dropped out after a family hiatus and in need of a job, any job, I landed this current 'marketing executive' role. I've been sort of lucky with it since it's definitely an easy and good paying job and I've been at it for a year now.

After my personal family issues settled I realized I don't want to do this forever and I found love for web-development. After researching I've settled on Javascript, finished a JS (nodejs/react) 6 month bootcamp and I've been searching for an entry level JS job ever since. The job market over here is more saturated with PHP and .NET than Javascript and in retrospect that might've been the faster route to get employed but I chose JS because of it's great potential and being mainstream overseas. That's not to say there aren't any JS jobs here but they are certainly not dominating. I've gotten a couple of replies back but nothing serious, until a company showed great interest in me.

But then they sort of ghosted me for a month. I've sent a 'follow through' email to which I got back that 'things have changed in their needs since then and now they need a PHP/Laravel + Vue guy and if I'm interested in learning PHP to let them know'. They told me if I agree in learning PHP I would get their offer, once I accept the offer, since I have 30 days notice, I'd have the 30 days to focus on learning PHP and then when I start at their company I'd learn as I work, and maybe if needed and if possible, a couple of 'training days' before directly jumping into work. I wasn't too excited about this but I wasn't going to let an opportunity go away without finding out more so I entertained the idea of being interested in learning PHP.

Now I'm awaiting their offer and even though I don't know what to expect. I can't say that I'm not interested in kickstarting my web-dev career but I wasn't very keen on PHP even before this, and thinking long term, I'd rather focus on JS since I can also diverse into mobile and desktop development as well as front and back-end web-dev.

Any advice?

DEV Community: Кејтеновиот син ♦

I finished a Javascript bootcamp but got offered a PHP job. Should I accept it?