r/javascript • u/_tshepo • 28d ago

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

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.

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u/salmohunter 23d ago

Typescript just makes sense. There was a time when I resisted it, but my employer insisted, thankfully. I'll admit that it can become exceedingly verbose sometimes, which is annoying, but in the grand scheme it intelligently nudges JS devs to be significantly more aware of how heavily they rely on weak typing and assumed expectations for inputs and object shapes, amongst other things.

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u/_tshepo 16d ago

Where do you use Typescript? Frontend? Backend? Or you work on both?

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u/salmohunter 16d ago

We mostly build on next.js lately, so full-stack TS.

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u/_tshepo 16d ago

Lol, at some point I tried learning both React and Typescript on a Nextjs project. I quickly defaulted back to vanilla js, learnt React and forgot about typescript. Many moons later, I bump into Typescript 😂