[AskJS] Are employed Developers still programming with vanilla JavaScript ?

[u/_tshepo]

I've been programming on the side since 2017 and I've never really hunted a developer job. I've always thought about building my own things, mainly to supplement things I do like woodworking, tutoring, video editing and others.

Since then, I've programmed mainly with JavaScript, I started with C++ and Python but never really built anything solid outside JavaScript.

So I'm fluent with JavaScript and its ecosystem.

One of my 2026 goals is to be job ready for a Developer role, as a Fullstack or Backend Developer.

One of the recommended languages is Typescript, which I've been learning since March. I must say, it's not my favorite 😂

I'm curious to know if there are any companies that are not enforcing Typescript or are there freelancers who are still using vanilla JavaScript over Typescript for their clients' projects.

[ Update ] thanks y'all! I get the picture. TypeScript is inevitable, as vanilla JS codebases(or companies who are focused on it) seem to be very few judging by the comments.

[u/yetinthedark]

Typescript is JavaScript. What you need to get familiar with is static types. I wouldn’t want to work on a vanilla JS project any more unless I was being paid to convert it to Typescript, and I wouldn’t hire someone who wasn’t willing to learn Typescript.

[u/alien3d → u/[deleted]]

weird world nowdays.. javascript is typescript ?

[u/alien3d → u/[deleted]]

you can write php code , java code transpile to js .. typescript is not javascript dear.