Two Reasons You Must Learn a Front End JavaScript Framework in 2019

I just took a month or two to really study the job market, even applying to jobs and taking on interviews. Why? For three reasons:

1. To stay relevant and up to date on what the latest trends were.
2. To have real-world answers for the students in my Learn to Code Blueprint Course (75% off this week!!).
3. To look for more steady work and to ultimately step away from the freelance hustle (of which I accepted an offer with an amazing company, and will share on all that at a later time).

In doing so, I have become convinced that developers must learn a front end JavaScript framework in 2019, namely Angular or React, and in my opinion React.

Here two compelling reasons why I think you must learn a front end Javascript framework in 2019

FYI: Yes, I know React is a library, not a framework, but I am going to lump all these into the 'framework' category for this article.

1. Because back end development, alone, is not enough.

The majority of back-end developer jobs that I saw required knowledge of a front end framework. Back-end, alone, was not enough!

Even if it is not an absolute requirement, almost every back-end listing asked for some sort of working knowledge of JavaScript frameworks.

There are listings for Django developers who will need to know React because they are using Django as an API only. Laravel developers are expected to be familiar with Vue (Laravel's native choice) or with React. And so on.

And ultimately, JavaScript has full stack capabilities.

2. Because there is a high demand, especially for React

Take a look at the latest listings on We Work Remotely. Almost all I could fit into a screenshot require knowledge of React or Angular:

Take a look at Upwork. At this very moment, here are the results:

React – 243 listings
Angular – 104 listings
Laravel – 54 listings
Vue – 53 listings
Django – 38 listings

and so on…

If you visit Indeed.com, Cyber Coders, Remote.co, Zip Recruiter, you will notice that the majority of the jobs are either specifically React or require a familiarity with front end frameworks (React, Angular, Vue).

Conclusion

If you are used to Front-end positions asking for HTML, CSS, and JS only, then you are a year or two behind.

Almost all positions labeled front-end engineer, front-end developer, JavaScript developer, etc. that I came across required mostly React (and many Angular).

A large majority of the Full-Stack positions listed required knowledge of a front end JavaScript framework.

And many of the back-end developer positions required knowledge of modern JS frameworks (React, Vue, Angular).

So if you are learning to code or looking to level up your skills in 2019, React or Angular may be your best bet, especially React.

Other Opinions

Opinion 1: There are still tons of Ruby on Rails jobs. I assume this is maintaining all the Rails sites out there. Either way, there are listings for these developers everywhere.

Opinion 2: Learn Vue for pleasure, not for employment (unless you are a devoted back-end developer as many of these jobs require knowledge of one of the big 3 (React, Angular, Vue). I just don't see a lot of jobs out there asking specifically for Vue.js. And yes, Vue is by far my favorite too!

Opinion 3: There are tons of PHP jobs out there. But aside from WordPress (and a framework like Laravel), many of these jobs are maintaining old PHP sites. Not too appealing. But if you are planning to freelance, a good knowledge of PHP will go a long way.

Discussion

Have you noticed this trend? Are you familiar with front end JavaScript frameworks?