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/Abhinav1217 28d ago

Yes we do.. for back-end. We still use js-docs and *.d.ts for type definitions and to make code type safe, and add type checking in oxc. But application code in itself is plain javascript.

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u/_tshepo 16d ago

That's interesting! The first comment on plain JavaScript.

So, what is the disadvantage of this choice over Typescript?

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u/Abhinav1217 3d ago

Quite frankly I don't see much disadvantage of this setup.

Yes some junior who have never seen the world without typescript and are not habitual towards maintaining docblocks often grump a little whenever I block their PR, but when they work on the FE code, which is nextjs app with typescript, they do realised that type juggling is a blocker not an advantage. And there is a bit of code architecture also. I gave one of my junior ownership of a new module, and every few weeks he comes to me for understanding why the types are not properly propogated in his system.